Things Only Whispered In The Shadows
by AlexisGrimm
Summary: When the world of the two siblings, Talon and Whisper comes crashing down around them they set out on a quest to find heroes who can help them stop the destruction and maybe even become heroes themselves along the way.With the help of an old fox and a robotic cat the story of two worlds comes together. Set after sonic x. Reviews welcome.
1. Talon and Whisper

**This is the first fan fic that I have ever posted, I do not own sonic the hedgehog or any of the characters from the games, movies or comics but I do own this story and the other characters, I hope you enjoy it.**

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**CH.1 Talon and Whisper**

This world was peaceful once, before the wars we once fought for greed, before the chaos when monsters first appeared in our world, before "him" the demon who took our parents from us. We were just a couple of orphans to the world now and there wasn't much anyone was willing to do about it, so we took matters into our own hands. I lived on the run with my big brother Talon and when we weren't running from monsters we were looking for our parent's killer. Looking wasn't the hard part, we knew who and where he was, getting to him was the hard part.

Our parents were craftsman in the wars, they created weapons and armor of nearly unrivaled quality. Most craftsman relied on the abilities they could put into their tools and goods, our parents were masters at the art of creating a perfectly balanced sword suited to its wielder, and armor with just the right qualities both magical and nonmagical alike to protect the owner and to help further their own abilities. Another reason that they were so well renowned was their refusal to create weapons and armor for any other reason than to protect and defend. They had never created a weapon with the intent to kill another so their equipment had the highest defensive abilities anyone had ever seen.

Talon was four when the wars ended and the chaos ensued, monsters began to appear all over the world and there wasn't much most people could do about it. Our parent's skills had saved us all on more than one occasion but my brother was more interested in monster slaying than crafting at the time so our parents had created a "weapon" for him to keep him safe on his excursions. It was a scarf dubbed the Golden Sleeve and it was nearly indestructible along with having the ability to help sustain ones momentum. It held true to its name and he became known as the green and gold Talon. The Golden Sleeve had spurred him to push himself to even greater speeds.

Shortly after his fame began to spread I was born. Our parents, thinking ahead, created the Silver Sleeve for me.

In five short years I was fighting alongside my brother and learning the craft from our parents. Unlike his Golden Sleeve my Silver Sleeve is lighter weight and instead of sustaining momentum it increases it. It would be more impressive if that meant that I went faster with less effort but it's more like I spend more effort to go faster than I should be able to, but don't get me wrong I'm not complaining, when I try hard enough not only could I out pace my brother at half his age I could sometimes get somewhere fast enough to leave him in the dust.

By the time I was ten our skills were at the top of the food chain, so to speak, when everything went wrong, we were impressive in our own right to be sure and we didn't hold a candle to our parents but that didn't stop them from being snuffed out like armatures. It took everything they had to help us escape and we still nearly lost our lives that day. I don't remember much about that day, it all happened so fast and I was to focused on the fact that I no longer had parents, that and if I didn't run like hell then I too would be dead.

I had never seen the demon who killed our parents before but I recognized him immediately. He was the one our parents had opposed in the wars before the chaos and it looked like him and his army had finally overcome the monsters. He was a regular cat at first glance, but the murder in his eyes told you otherwise and if you looked close enough you could see countless scars covering his hands and up his arms from untold battles. His most defining feature though wasn't his blood thirsty gaze, it was the large red gem hanging from his cloak that starkly contrasted his dark colored outfit and cold blue eyes. His name was Salem, and he had murdered thousands before and he was now my enemy.

"Hey ugly! Over here!" Talon jumped from one minion to another as we lead the Golem deeper into the cavern knowing full well that there was a drop off not more than twenty feet behind us.

"Talon switch out!" I calmly dodge between the smaller golems dancing around flailing arms, legs, and the occasional club or sword. Golems weren't the most intelligent monsters. Talon was still stronger than me but I could hit harder when I got my speed up, a wry smile crossed my face as I dashed up along the wall flanking the golem and spinning it around as he tried to follow my movement.

"Whisper?! Where are you going?" he stood there confused dodging the odd minion here and there. "We need him to go the _other_ way"

I grin wider at that and turn sharply back toward the golem and Talon picking up momentum all the while. I leap at the golem and hit it dead center with enough force to throw it back to the edge of the drop. Talons eyes widen as the boulder of a golem hurls toward him forcing him to make a quick and sloppy dodge.

"Are you freaking crazy!? I think your trying to kill me now, a little warning next time maybe?" he looks at me with his half smile half glare that says it was at least a little more entertaining than it was dangerous.

"Oops" I back up as the golem stands back up and nearly steps on me, my brother dropping into a crouch to avoid a swinging arm. This time he smiles.

"You missed the hole, _This_ is how you drop a golem!" he jumps forward and punches the golem in the face forcing it to take a step back, one two many steps. As a few small chunks of rock fall from the golems shattered face it drops down the deep pit for a while before hitting water and sinking into the large lake at the bottom. Grinning like an idiot he turns back to me and shakes his fist out a little. "So that's one more point for me then little sis."

"Uh no... that would be _My_ point dearest brother. If it weren't for me you would have never gotten near the thing." I give him my sincerest deadly smile and he backed away still smiling.

"Of course it is, of course it is. Now how shall I celebrate?" I begin to chase him around the cavern, smashing minions as we work our way to the exit both grinning like idiots.

We continue like this for a few more minutes in the endless fields outside until I give up the chase, dropping to the grass panting. I may be faster but if he can dodge long enough I don't stand a chance of catching him.

Talon drops down beside me chuckling "What's the matter? Having trouble keeping up?" I punch him in the shoulder playfully then look up at the sky.

My mood sobers as I think about how dangerous the world has become. It would be great if defeating that golem and its minions was about all that needed to be done to make the world a safer place but it was far from enough, our world needed a hero or two and no one seemed to be stepping up to be that hero. I sighed and closed my eyes.

"What's wrong? We kicked golem butt back there and still have time to do whatever we want with the rest of the day, what's eating you?"

"I..." I sit up, pull my knees close and set my chin down. "The world needs help and no one will stand up and fight _him_... We don't stand a chance against him and so we're here beating on third rate monsters hoping that we will get stronger and that it will help someone..." I squeeze my eyes closed hoping to stop the tears from pouring down my face to no avail.

My brother puts his hand on my head "Then we'll just have to try harder and do more! If no one else will do it then we'll be the heroes." I look at him, wiping tears from my face. He's smiling again. "Salem will never know what hit him"

I smiled back and nodded. Look out demon here we come!

I didn't know what we were doing here, Talon didn't tell me anything other than he had a lead that would help us avenge our parents and stop Salem from taking the rest of the world under his twisted and tyrannical reign.

We had spent the last couple months hunting any and all monsters we could take on as well as routing supplies from any poorly guarded supply lines of his. When we weren't taking on our impossible task we were training hard to be faster, stronger, and smarter. I began training my stamina and relearning everything about crafting that our parents had taught me. I wasn't blindfolded or anything but it was incredibly unnerving not knowing where we were going.

We were currently climbing possibly the most dangerous mountains in the world and even though it was the best season to do so. Even Salem and his armies stayed well clear of this place, which made me wonder even more if Talon had lost his marbles when he hit his head the other day while training. The monsters living in these mountains were more than enough to deter potential visitors and as if that wasn't bad enough there was supposed to be some ancient ruins of the last civilization that tried to make this place home. If an entire civilization couldn't tame this place how in the world did my brother expect to find _help_ here?

"We're almost there." he looks down at me, a reassuring look on his face as we climbed the sheer cliff. Even though he assured me that this was the quickest way there, after climbing for three hours I was skeptical, and if we got to the top and he told me it was all just for training and there was no lead I would push him off the top.

"If you're lying..." a deep rumbling cut my threat short. I clung to the cliff like my life depended on it, and just as suddenly as it started it stopped.

"You alright?" I glanced up at his worried expression just in time to see the landslide barreling down the mountain. The look on my face had to have been enough of a warning coupled with the quickly growing roar of tons of dislodged rock heading straight towards us.

Talon dropped down to me, scooped me off of my precarious perch and in one strong leap to the side narrowly avoided being crushed by a boulder the size of a house.

"Don't worry, I got you" He wove his way through falling debris up and around the landslide. We were almost through when I heard a sickening crack and felt my brother tense up. Suddenly we were falling and looking down I was horrified to see blood pouring down Talons leg. He was still trying to hang on to the cliff, only managing to slow our decent. We finally hit a narrow ledge just wide enough to catch us.

I was crying again by this point, thinking that all of our hard work to get here had nearly ended in the blink of an eye. We had to get out of here but that would mean going back down the mountain we were already mostly over and the chances of getting hit with another landslide were not looking good. Our only other option was to get where Talon was trying to go originally and hope there really was help there, and that we didn't end up dead first.

"Hey, don't look so sad we made it this far. Only a couple more minutes, well maybe a couple hours now, and we will be there I promise." I could see that he was trying to look calm and collected but he only pulls off a half pained smile.

"Talon..." I begin to cry again as I pull myself off of him and over to sit beside him on the ledge, Then I see a cave entrance further along the ledge. I sniffle a bit and head over to check it out. The cave is much larger up close and realizing I left Talon out on the ledge with a broken leg I head back out. "Talon! Lookit this!"

"Good work Sis..." As I turn down the ledge again I see that Talon had hefted himself up on one leg and using the cliff to lean on was working his way over on his own. I rush over to help him to the cave carefully avoiding falling off of the edge.

"Don't push yourself Talon, we need to get you help..." He sits down and leans against the cave wall looking around, probably thinking up a new plan of action. "Is it as bad as it looks?" My voice quivers a bit when I ask, trying not to cry again.

"Probably, but we've got bigger things to worry about. If we don't make it over the peak by sundown we're in for the fight of our lives..." He grimaces as he shifts positions.

"Are you always this depressing?" An unfamiliar voice emanates from a nearby shadow in the cave. "If you're looking for help you just found the one and only shortcut." an orange striped cat strides out into the lighted part of the cave. "Names Fel, Am I right to assume you're looking for the old grey geezer?" despite his attitude Fel kneels down next to Talon. "Lem'me take a look... Not much I can do without supplies from the geezer but I can help you get there..."

"Why are you helping us?"

"Whisper!" Talon was sometimes a little too trusting of new people, I on the other hand trusted no one without reason. "Please forgive my sister she can be a bit, wary of strangers... and people in general"

Fel gave me a thoughtful look for a bit before replying "Because you and your brother need my help if you want to make it before nightfall. That and I'm probably the only thing on this mountain other than the geezer that won't try to eat you." With that he turned to help Talon up. "We should get started _before_ it starts getting dark"

Frustrated I fumed for a moment letting them disappear around the corner, then glancing out the entrance I see that the days light was already an hour or two from disappearing. Who knew what kind of unthinkable horrors came out in the dark of this already hellish place? I gave a squeak of surprise when a drop of water landed on my head and promptly headed after them into the darkness.

"Wait for me..." I nearly bowled the two of them down when I rounded the corner at full speed. Ignoring the near accident I grabbed on to Talons free hand and held on like my life depended on it, Talon trying to stifle a smile.

Heading deeper into the darkness Fel continued on without hesitation, taking us with him.

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**Thanks for reading. Feedback is appreciated!**


	2. Worlds Apart

**Thank you to all of those who bothered to read the first chapter and came back to read the second.**

**Things Whispered In The Shadows**

**CH.2 Worlds Apart**

The Exit was lit by moonlight, we had made it through. It had taken longer than we thought since we had to keep stopping to let Talon rest even though he insisted otherwise. "Sweet freedom, sweet sweet freedom..." I hadn't intended to say that out loud but I really didn't care at this point, I had learned just how much I hate dark, cramped spaces. I flopped onto the ground at the entrance to hug the ground and breathed in the fresh air.

,"Whisper don't!..." Fel reached out toward me still supporting Talon, but didn't get any closer, instead he looked frozen to that one spot fear crossing his face almost comically.

I gave him a confused look and then it dawned on me...

It was dark out...

I had completely forgotten where we were after being in the cave for so long. Looking around I spotted the source of Fels fear. Nearly leaping to my feet I began backing away back toward the cave as an enormous creature reared up in front of us. It was easily three stories tall, had six trunk like legs and a long neck, too long for its comparatively short stocky body, which would have been funny if its mouth hadn't been large enough to swallow any one of us whole and filled with rows of jagged teeth...

"What the hell is that?!" I had never heard Talon swear before and I wasn't sure if this counted but it was definitely the closest he had ever gotten. The creature trained one of its six hideously over sized eyes on us, blinked and then decided it wanted to eat us.

I dodged left and Fel dodged right with Talon in tow, the monster noticed that they were the easier prey and went after them. I stopped running and watched in horror, realizing if it got them I would be alone, if I survived. I pulled my Silver Sleeve loose, letting it drop over my shoulder and raced full speed up to it from behind and jumped toward its head. I lept back almost immediately after making contact, but even I wasn't fast enough to avoid the counter strike, apparently it also had two tails to worry about as well. I sailed across the clearing and only stopped when I hit the cliff next to the cave.

"No! Whisper!" Talon tried to make his way to me alone only to end up on the ground with nothing to support him and Fel trying to help him back up.

At the very least I had gotten its attention. I stood up holding my bruised ribs and tried again, the only thoughts running through my head were saving Talon and Fel, and the need to go faster and hit harder. I hit it again and managed to avoid its counter attack only to miss my footing on the landing and get pummeled by another tail. I looked up in time to see it rear up on two legs ready to pound me into a pancake.

A loud boom sounded, only to be drowned out by the monsters dying roar. The thing collapsed sideways near the cliff and slid down the mountain, disappearing over the drop.

Relief washed over me as I saw Fel help Talon off of the ground and walk over to me, then panic set in as I wondered what was powerful enough to kill that thing in one blow. Shakily standing up I looked around ready for another fight to begin at any moment, but nothing happened. A confused look crossing my face.

"Good to see you can stand" Fel gave me a once over, looking for anything serious. "We were lucky that the old geezer showed up when he did."

I glanced over to see that an old grey fox was standing at the base of a long flight of stairs that seemed to continue the rest of the way up the mountain and around to the back of one of the peaks. He wasn't particularly intimidating on his own, in fact he looked more worn out and tired than anything, but the large smoking tube that he was holding was clearly a weapon, made me nervous. If that was what he used to kill the beast I had no idea how it had done so, it made me almost as curious to know more about it as it made me afraid to know. Better to err on the side of caution...

"Don't worry it's harmless now, it only fires once before you need to reload it." the old fox had noticed my stares and was now walking over to our ragged group, tossing the large weapon over his shoulder and onto his back with little effort. He was tall for a fox and looked as old as the mountain itself, he was even the same grey as some of the rocks. "Talon and Whisper I believe?" he looks from me to my brother "Let's get you up to the temple, here hold on to me." He pulls a large green gem from the pocket of his long white lab coat and puts his other hand on Fel's shoulder. I grab onto his coat and Talon grabs his arm, then the world disappears.

I find myself falling to the ground in a different place than before, a nauseous feeling rising up inside. Talon is on the ground beside me with the same befuddled, nauseous look on his face and if it wasn't my imagination he looked a little greener than usual. I almost chuckled at that but thought better of it as the room seemed to spin around me a bit. Fel was still standing with only the slightest discomfort showing on his face, mixed with amusement at our own discomfort no doubt. "Were here" the fox announced as if it weren't obvious.

"You seem to have us at a disadvantage, we never got your name..." Fel helps talon off of the floor and to a seat on a nearby couch, the room is enormous and crammed full of... well, stuff.

"Oh? Forgive my manners, my name is Maxis Prower. I am the current guardian of this place." He gestures to the messy room and I assume the rest of the, what did he call it a temple? It didn't look much like a temple to me, more like a junk heap with a roof but that was just my opinion. "I believe you have met my assistant Fel already"

"Well that explains a few things..." Talon smirks as Fel digs through a pile of boxes and bins till he pulls a large white box out. He sets it on the couch next to Talon and starts pulling out rolls of gauze and other supplies. "I was told you could help us. We are looking for..."

"Yes, yes I know what you are here for, how else would I know your names?" Maxis busies himself with digging through a stack of papers and redeposits the large green gem back into his pocket. "Now where is that blasted book..."

"That gem... where did you get it?" remembering the night our parents died, the image of a similar gemstone was burned into my mind once again.

Maxis stops rummaging and turns a wide eyed stare toward me. "You've seen one of these before? Were? What color was it?" he slowly picks his way over to me not once looking away.

"A red one, hanging from the neck of the demon who killed our parents, Salem." Now it was Talon and Fel's turn to be surprised. Talon didn't see Salem kill our parents or get a good look at him, he was too busy trying to save both of our lives. "What is that gem?" this old fox knew something important and I was determined to know what.

He was silent for a moment, "This complicates things... These gems are the keys to overthrowing Salem, they can give certain people enormous power and if he has the red gem then he has two of the seven while we have only one." the old fox drops down into a large chair surrounded by stacks of books, papers and the occasional piece of mechanical junk. "We need all Seven of these gems to recharge the temples power supply and open the doorway to that world."

"What world?" Talon and I ask in unison.

"Oh yes that's right I haven't explained much yet have I. This world is a fragment of another, severed hundreds of years ago from its parent world. Those of us chosen to guard this temple have been charged with the duty to gather the seven fragment emeralds and reunite this world with the original."

"Fragment emeralds? Why not call them something cool like infinity emeralds or power emeralds or something like that?" I knew it was probably a pointless question but I couldn't help but ask.

"Because little hedgehog, as I said this world is only a fragment of the original and so the emeralds are only a fragment of the original emeralds from that world." they may not be as powerful as the originals but those of us that can control them still gain amazing powers from them. Such as our trip here." he gave us a moment to let it all sink in.

"So... the fate of our world, that just so happens to only be a fragment of _another_ world, rests on us finding and obtaining a set of _magical gems_, that also happen to be fragments. Two of which happen to be in the hands of the person we need to obtain said gems to defeat... Does that about sum it up?" Talon may be the most understanding person I know, not that I know a lot of people, but to see him now was so depressing it was making me regret coming to this place even more.

"Yep sounds about right," we may have just met but it was obvious that Fel was putting on a brave face.

"So? Where do we start?" I couldn't give up now, we had a chance no matter how small. They all stared at me in shock for a second then Talon and Fel smiled and a spark began to grow in Maxis' eyes. Hope, the one thing we had never dared to dream of was finally within reach.

"This is going to be the hardest thing any of us have ever done, are you sure you're all up for it?" Maxis looked to us stopping to stare at each of us, almost like a challenge.

"Up for it? Why do you think we're here? We didn't endanger our lives coming to this forsaken place to ask for the secret ingredient to Margret's famous soup. I'm in." Talons smile widens when he looks at me, the old fox nods approvingly.

"Do I have much of a choice? If Salem has two gems then it's only a matter of time before he comes looking for more and turns his gaze toward this place." Fel stands up and gives a nervous smile.

"Good, then we start here and now. Seen as how Talon cannot participate for a couple of weeks he will be an observer until such a time as he can be of use. Fel, Whisper follow me please."

With that I was given the grand tour of the 'temple' turned science project, and introduced to the inhabitants of the forsaken place.

Robots of all sizes and kinds were lined up against the walls of the training room, most were at least twice my size and some were as big as small buildings. The room was the biggest one in the entire place and was so large it was nearly impossible to see the ceiling in the low light of the evening.

"Fel would you be so kind as to activate the novice training bots?" Fell nodded and strode over to a couple of smaller bots leaning against the nearest wall and put a hand on each one, the surprise on my face when sparks raced from his palms and across the bots must have been more obvious than I thought since Maxis chuckled. "Sorry my dear, Fel must have neglected to tell you, he is a robot himself and a dammed good one at that."

I looked from Fel to the old fox and back in astonishment. I barely knew what a robot was let alone that they could look like a normal person.

"Ready"

"Now, I got a good look at what you are capable of outside but with such impossible odds it is hard to gauge what kind of damage you can do to reasonable opponents." He gestured to the two bots that had made their way to the center of the room and stood there facing our general direction. "Feel free to attack whenever you feel ready"

"Ok..." I wasn't sure where to start, I had never initiated a fight with an opponent that was not already trying to kill me... so I just dove in going for the one on the right first. That was a mistake. The first one dodged me easily while the second one struck me in the back tossing me forward. So they were at least intelligent enough to counter a direct attack, and it hurt. I got up and tried again I charged in the same as before but instead I dodged to the left and swung around behind the bot trying to counter my oncoming blow. It stumbled forward into the first bot and then fell to the ground in a tangle to arms and legs. "Hah!" I turned around to announce my triumph. "See that?" Fel covered his eyes, smiling and grimacing at the same time as I flew forward. Again ouch, I should have realized that training of _any_ kind would never be that easy. I stood up again, and dodged a second blow only to run headlong into the second bot. Using the bots head as a step I launched into the air and turned my momentum into an axe kick to the first bots face, effectively disabling it and then spun around and charged the second hard enough to punch a hole in the outer shell. I backed up holding my hand, "Owowowowowow..."

"Well done, although if you could have done that in the first place you would have had fewer bruises." Fel snickered from across the room and I stick my tonged out at him.

Maxis, ignoring our childish behavior, walked out of the room. "That should be enough for today, Fel show our new friends where they will be living while I prepare some food."

"Don't let him get behind you!" It had been a Year since Fel had led us through the cave and Maxis had taken us under his care. The clash of fighting surrounded the three of us.

Fel spun around behind me blocking an attack that I could have easily dodged and then danced off to smash another bot in the face.

Talon jumped above the fray and landed on the shoulders of one of the taller bots, steering it flailing toward the center of the group.

I backed out of the group and looked around, dismantling the stray bots that came for me instead of the other two. I grinned to myself. I was only 12 but I knew that my speed was nothing to sneeze at. I could easily out pace my brother and Fel wasn't much better, I didn't need to take more than a couple minutes to take down most of Maxis' bots anymore and neither did the others. This was our final test before our real training began. I settled into a low crouch, then launched into the fray again. I ricocheted from one bot to another working my way up the ranks and picking up momentum as I went.

"Hey Whisper! Give me a boost!" Talon had fully recovered from his injuries and had even surprised the old fox by improving faster than any of us could have ever hopped. Now we fought side by side feeding off of each other's momentum, getting stronger and faster by the day.

I grabbed hold of Talons arm as I dashed past and pulled him forward fast enough to launch him into the largest of the bots and stopped to watch. He plowed through it like it was made of paper, then took out the remaining bots with the momentum he had left.

We had learned to fight without our scarves for the most part only using them when absolutely necessary, or when we felt the need to put an extra flourish on a finishing blow. So far we hadn't needed to use them and the only opponents left were hoisting their gargantuan selves off of the sidelines.

The three Titan bots slowly surveyed the field before moving into the arena. They were each the size of a two story house and each had unique fighting styles. They were hard opponents on their own and together they were downright deadly, but unfortunately for them so were we when we worked together.

I nodded to Fel and Talon, they nodded back with a mix of seriousness and excitement... The silver and gold sleeves trailed out behind us and Fel raised his arm now sporting a miniature accelerator cannon.

I smiled and charged full force into the largest of the three as Talon speed up the fortresses arm and Fel leveled his cannon at the speedster. I hit first Knocking mine back and hitting it over and over to keep it on the defensive. Talon punched out one of the fortresses eyes and half of its face with it, I began letting up on my attacks leading the massive bot over to its companion. Fel fired the cannon with a deafening boom and took out one of the speedsters arms throwing it off balance and slowing it down, then a second shot took it down at the knee. The fortress, now blind on one side swung for Talon only to hit the behemoth crushing its own arm and the behemoths face. I spun around and took out the remaining eye and Talon crushed the bots' power sources. Another loud boom and Fel watched the final bot fall to the floor with a gaping hole in is center.

"So that's what it feels like to impress the old geezer" Fel grinned at Maxis who was in fact grinning in return. I hadn't seen him so much as crack a smile on more than a couple occasions so the fact that he was this happy right now was something to be proud of. But not too proud because the old fox could still kick all of our buts in a second if he wanted to as we found out shortly after starting training when we didn't feel like doing our morning routine.

"Don't go getting a big head Fel you might have to retire early if you can't fit out the door." Talon dodged a swing and danced out of Fels reach. I giggled a little and walked out of the training hall after Maxis who was already on his way to the dining area, it would be too much of a stretch to call it a room but it was still one of our favorite places to be, aside from the lookout of course.

In the year that My brother and I had been here Fel had become Talons best friend and Maxis had become my tutor once he realized I had an interests in crafting. I learned how to make weapons stronger than even my parents had dreamed, then again this knowledge was passed down from another world.

So as nice as our lives seemed now we still had a long way to go before we could take on Salem and his ever expanding empire. For now we had to settle for besting the monsters that lived in this ancient place. We still couldn't venture out alone after dark but we were well enough on our own during the day as long as we stuck together. In this place it was eat or get eaten and thanks to our training and each other we were the ones doing most of the eating.

We had the rest of the day off to do with as we pleased and like usual on days like this, when we had time to ourselves, we found ourselves in the watch tower, the only place higher than the peaks that surrounded the Temple. We could see for miles in every direction, like looking out over a mighty kingdom of beasts. For some reason being completely surrounded by ferocious monsters that could easily eat any one of us, and even Maxis if he was to careless, was comforting especially knowing that even Salem and his armies would have a hard time surviving here let alone conquering it.

The three of us sat there in silence for a while and even watched the sun set over the peaks. "It's hard to believe that we made it this far..." Talon, still staring at the setting sun, was the first to move "We can't wait much longer, we have to keep moving or we won't be able to get enough of the fragment emeralds to take the ones Salem has."

"Well you can count on my help, whether you like it or not I'm coming with." Fel grins, his eyes dancing with anticipation "Man think of all the adventures and the treasure! Not to mention the adoring fans we'll have after we kick Salem's butt and take the emeralds from him!"

"Adoring fans?" I can't help but laugh a little when I say it "And besides if we manage to kick Salem's butt we won't need the emeralds anymore. The whole purpose of getting them was so that we_ could_ kick his butt."

Fel blushes and stops to think about it and Talon buts in to save his best friend from further embarrassment "Either way we need to get them from him, they could be dangerous in anyone's hands if used the wrong way or for the wrong things."

"Well you're both forgetting that regardless of if they fell into someone else's hands or not Maxis and I need them to reunite the two worlds remember?" We both had to stop and stare at Fel this time. Big duh moment there for the both of us.

"I almost forgot about that, we've been so focused on Salem we forgot about what we were going to do after..." Talon turns back to the last of the sunset and sighs. "It's strange thinking that one day we might be able to explore the world without someone or something trying to kill us every time we turn around..."

"Yeah I know right? It's like the world got a whole lot bigger. Heh I call the fan girls!"

"No way dude, and besides what makes you think they would go for a robocat? I stand a _way_ better chance at getting a girl than you, and fan girls _so_ do not count."

This is where I rolled my eyes and left the conversation. The boys could be so boring sometimes. I turned to leave them to their girl talk and stopped when I saw Maxis at the top of the stairs.

The look on his face said that he had something important to tell us, "Hey guys." Of course I was ignored, "Guys!"

"Would not!"

"Would so, _robocat_."

"If you two are done I require your undivided attention." I stifled a snicker but failed to hide the smile, and to think they called me childish.

The boys nearly jumped out of their skins and they both turned red from embarrassment. They stood up and gave Maxis the undivided attention he asked for, probably more from a need to move on from the embarrassment than actual fear of what the old fox might do. "Tonight your real training begins, it will be brief and intense." He looked between the three of us "If you are not up to the challenge then I suggest you find your way down the mountain before nightfall tomorrow evening." Clearing his throat and continued. "Otherwise I suggest you get your rest and prepare, you have a long hard journey ahead of you starting tomorrow night." I didn't particularly like the slight emphasis he put on the word hard but we were used to hard training up till now. This was somewhat exciting, it was different from the routine we had grown used to.

"Not a chance were giving up, we spent to long getting here." Talon nodded to Fel then smiled at Maxis.

"Same answer here, why abandon the most interesting thing that's ever happened in my life?" Fel stepped forward slightly and looked to me.

I sighed "I hate to admit it but I have to agree with these two idiots." I gave them both a Mischievous smile before turning my attention back to Maxis. To my surprise he was smiling again which only made the rest of us smile even bigger in return.

"Well I guess that settles it then, get yourselves some rest, I will see you tomorrow at sundown."

We exchanged excited glances before following him down the tower and heading off to our rooms. I plopped myself down into my bed and realized I was exhausted, the good kind, and drifted off wondering what kind of training we would be doing next.


	3. Sunrise

**Thank you to those who are actually reading this. I promise that the sonic characters are really in this, just not yet.**

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch.3 Sunrise**

I wasn't sure what we were doing, other than the obvious. Maxis had gathered us outside shortly before sundown and even though Maxis was with us I couldn't help but feel that we were braking a well-defined and well-founded rule.

Never go out after dark.

We had never broken this rule for the simple fact that we _knew_ what kind of monsters came out at night. Maxis had saved our butts the night we arrived from one such monster and to learn that it was nowhere close to the strongest thing living in these mountains and the valley below gave us a good reason to follow said rule even if we neglected most of the others.

The old fox cleared his throat to get our attention. "I assume you're all wondering why we're out here so close to dark."

"No, not really just wondering what that strange smell is, ah yes a rhetorical question." Even though he was a bot sarcasm seemed to be Fels second language, his first being code.

Talon raises an eyebrow to Fel, they may be best friends but Talon was a bit more respectful and less sarcastic, for the most part anyway.

"What?" Fel couldn't help but smile, he seemed to have that problem a lot, and we couldn't help but smile back. Talon shook his head trying to hide his smile and I stifled a giggle.

"Are you done?" Maxis was less than amused by our lack of composure. "If you're ready to goof off then I guess you don't need to know what I had to say before you go off for the night on your own..." Wait what?! Suddenly what he had to say seemed infinitely more important.

"Wait... are you serious?" Talon choked on his own sentence.

"You're kidding right?" Talon and Fel were as surprised at what he had said as I was.

"No Fel, we're going to go back in to have a banquet in your honor." Maxis always sounded dead serious and to hear that last sentence in his usual tone was almost comical, if the previous one hadn't been so terrifying.

"I'm not sure if that was sarcasm or not, but seen as how you would never throw me a banquet and are now glaring at me like... I should shut up now shouldn't I..." I almost burst out laughing, if it weren't for the look on the old grey foxes face I would be hysterical.

He was silent for a minute, probably making sure we were really paying attention, that or he was just doing it to make us even more nervous, if so it was working. "The three of you have reached the point in your training where you will no longer gain anything from training with the bots and you are now experienced enough to survive outside at night, as long as you stick together that is." I could see the seriousness on Maxis' face, the determination on Talons, and the effort to hold back an inappropriate remark on Fels. I personally was torn between mind numbing anxiety and unparalleled excitement. If Maxis thought we could make if one night together then we really had gotten stronger in the year we spent here. I wasn't sure if I wanted to celebrate or puke, or both. "You will have to use everything you have learned thus far and use it to your utmost limits to survive the night." Good feeling gone I was now trying my best to listen without losing my diner. "Should you get separated heading back to the temple would be your best chance of survival. I will be waiting at the bottom of the steps where we first met in the morning. Until then good luck." He left us there at the bottom of the mountain with one way back, and a bag each to help us carry any necessary gear. Which was mysteriously absent...

"What just happened?" Fel looked almost lost and definitely confused.

"I believe he just left us at the bottom of the mountain at night to fend for ourselves." Once again Talons innate talent had a way of making our blatantly obvious situation sound even worse than if he hadn't said anything at all. A chill went through me as the wind swept past us, rustling the leaves and sapping any enthusiasm we may have had left.

"With no gear and a pile of empty bags." I couldn't help myself at this point.

"We need to find somewhere to hold up, somewhere we can defend." Fel switched over to the only agreeable side of his personality, he was a tactician and survivalist when he wanted to be, operative words being 'wanted to'. "If we can't find somewhere then we need to find food and then keep moving and hope we can keep up whatever pace we need to too survive."

"We just ate, shouldn't we wait a bit to find food?" I wasn't sure why he wanted us to find food if we didn't need it at the moment.

"No Fel's right, if we look for food now then we won't have much competition since everything is either going to sleep or just waking up." That made sense I guess, I glanced around at the forest in the quickly fading light of dusk. This place was intimidating during the day and downright frightening now that the light was fading. "Another reason, if we wait till it gets too dark we might not be able to find much or have time to do so." Another valid reason to get moving now, the longer we stayed here the more I felt like we were being watched. I shivered.

"Come on let's get moving, not like I need food like you two do but the thought of being alone out here is not a comforting one." I had never noticed before but Fels eyes glowed in the dark, and for some reason I found that funny, even knowing that we could be ambushed any moment.

Talon nodded and lead the way. Fel and I fell in behind him and we made our way through the darkened forest, each hoping for a miracle.

A while later we found a small stream leading away from the temple, but that was fine we needed water and we could clearly see the peaks that hid the temple from anywhere in the valley. "Heh... look guys, I found something." I grabbed the small shard of glass out of the water, holding it up to the moonlight filtering through the trees. It was about the size of my index finger and smooth on all sides, probably from the water, and a pale blue color. Looking back to where I found it I discovered more of the smooth shards. In all I found a yellow one, pink, deep blue, red, black, white, green, orange, and purple. They were beautiful and I was strangely attracted to them. I knew they were probably only glass but they felt warm, almost alive. A sharp sound behind me jolted me out of my musings and I quickly turned to see Talon had stepped on a stick.

"I wonder how they got here? The only buildings were near the temple and for glass to be all the way out here... Are they all the same size too?" I ponderd his question for a bit until Fel broke my concentration. I quickly dropped all of the shards into my bag.

"We should get moving, and remember where this place is. I hear something coming from further upstream." and he was right, moments after we left the stream we heard a loud roaring sound, like the trees were being ground up, and we didn't dare look back.

When we finally stopped running Fel was the only one who wasn't out of breath, probably because he didn't have to breathe. Sometimes I forget he's a bot. "What the _HELL_ was that?!" We tried to calm him down only to work ourselves up and make even more noise. We had only been outside for about two hours and that made six more to go, we were doing well so far and hadn't encountered anything that we didn't normally see during the day, other than whatever it was that we had narrowly avoided. If we kept quiet we might have gone another couple of hours without incident...

With a resounding crash one of the six legged monsters we had met on our first night in the mountains reared its ugly head over the trees and charged in our direction. Thankfully it was louder than we were and had given us enough of a warning to get out of the way just in time to avoid the flying trees along with its gnashing teeth. It was also a good thing that the plants in this place grew so quickly or there wouldn't be a forest to begin with, too many monsters rampaged on a regular basis.

Unfortunately for us we all scattered in different directions.

This one was almost double the size of the one on the mountain had been and was undoubtedly stronger, and with the three of us separated in the dense foliage there was no way to tell where each one of us had landed. I decided to hit it hard and fast like the first one but this time I knew where to aim.

"Fel! Whisper! You two alright?" Talons voice came from the opposite side of the thing and Fels reply came from behind, how in the world he had gotten there I could only guess.

Instead of replying I jumped onto its back and ran up its neck. Crouching low I dodged one of its tails and lunged at its head. I didn't use the Silver Sleeve, I wanted to know how much damage that I could do without it. My aim was perfect and it let out a painful cry as I made contact with the base of its skull. There was the sound of cracking bone as it fell to the ground. I stood on top of its massive body just below the canopy of trees, "So who's next?" Fel stood there with his mouth hanging open and Talon grinned like he had just seen a miracle happen before his eyes. "That wasn't near as hard as I thought it would be..." All of a sudden it lurched upright again, flailing its head and twin tails towards us. I lost my balance and tumbled to the forest floor below, catching myself before I landed on my face.

It was Fels turn to take a shot at the beast, by the way the thing was flailing I was certain it was having trouble seeing us and by the sounds it was making I was fairly certain it was in pain. I almost felt sorry for it, until Talon came to check to see if I was alright and I remembered that it had tried to eat us a minute ago.

We looked up at it to see Fel pounding it from every angle, and without missing a beat he landed the finishing blow on the exact spot I had hit. He jumped off and landed a ways in front of us, practically posing for a super hero comic. "So how was that now? I think we should be alright now that I finished the beast off." He puffed his chest out and strutted over. I giggled at the image of a peacock that I found popping up in my head and Talon rolled his eyes.

"Come on _captain robocat_ we still have most of the night ahead of us and the racket we just caused is sure to attract unwanted attention from something nastier." Talon lead us safely away from the corpse and as we rounded a large boulder at the base of another cliff I saw pebbles skittering down from above. Remembering the rockslide that broke Talons leg I reacted without hesitation. In less than a second we were behind the boulder and the rumbling was behind us. I hadn't thought of how I was going to get them both back behind the boulder in time, it just happened. Looking from Talon to Fel and back they were equally impressed with what had just occurred. "Forget the monsters for a moment, what was _that_?"

"I... I don't know..." I glanced at myself wondering the same thing "It just... _Happened_"

"Well however it just happened let's hope it doesn't get us _into_ trouble." Fel was usually not such a pessimist but I really couldn't blame him for being wary of something none of us understood in the least.

Once clear of the landslide we continued on to a hopefully quieter place to pass the night. By the time midnight rolled around we had found yet _another_ cave and even though we were reluctant to enter we did, only out of a sense of urgency to find shelter. "If that thing finds us we're as good as dead..."

I had never seen Fel so shaken up, and worst of all was he wouldn't tell us what was after us. Fel had been the only one to see whatever it was and that had been nearly an hour ago, now we were searching every cave we could find for a good place to hide.

Talon had tried his best to get a coherent answer out of him but all we got was an even more cryptic answer. We knew that if we could make it to daybreak then anything foolish enough to follow us up the mountain would have to deal with the old fox. Until then we were on our own.

"This cave looks pretty deep, should we even be in here?" something crunched under my foot as I walked forward to get a better look. "Uhhhh... Guys I think we should get out of here like, _NOW_" I had stepped on a bone and it wasn't the only one. At first glance in the dark the cave floor just looked a little uneven which wasn't unusual for a cave but looking closer, the floor wasn't uneven it was littered with bones both big and small. I began backing up quickly towards the exit when something with large, glowing yellow eyes emerged from the darkness of the cave with a slithering, rattling sound.

"Oh crap..." Talon once again grabbed Fel by the arm yanking him out of the way as the enormous thing opened its mouth and sprang forward. This was the third cave we had found something living in and the other four were too small or too obvious to hide in. We didn't get far when something from outside began to snap the nearby trees as it approached. I turned back to look just as the monster behind us got close enough to the exit to be seen clearly, it was a snake almost as big around as the cave entrance and it wasn't a small entrance, both Talon and I could stand on Fels shoulders and still only graze the top with outstretched hands. If that wasn't enough it looked as if it were covered in bones, big ones, probably the ribs from its victims. And finally to top it all off the thing that had Fel freaking out had found us trapped between the bone snake and itself.

"I told you it was after us!" Fel was nearly hysterical and still being dragged along by Talon. "We are so screwed."

"Snap out of it Fel! We need you to focus on getting out of this _alive_ if you don't mind." Talon shook him as we stopped just out of reach of the snake and got a good look at what was following us. It looked like a creature straight out of someone's nightmares. It stood almost twenty feet tall and stood on two hideously disfigured legs. It was covered in dark grey fur with even darker stripes running along its back, and had blazing red eyes. Its claws were easily as long as my arms and its yellowed fangs were nearly as large. I could only look up in terror at the thing. I don't know why it was so intimidating after all we had killed larger monsters during the day, but for some reason it almost looked intelligent, that was probably why Fel was so terrified of it.

The snake lunged at us again and we took that as out cue to leave, running along the base of the cliff we risked another rock slide but it was better than staying between those two.

We edged our way along the cliff, the sounds of a massive battle ringing our behind us. We could hear the blood curdling howls and bone rattling hiss off in the distance for a while. The battle was surprisingly short lived and although I had only seen it once we knew who the victor had been, the steady crashing of trees behind us only made us even more sure of the outcome. Fel was right, we didn't stand a chance against that thing, but he was also wrong about finding a hiding spot. There wasn't a single place we could hide that it wouldn't find us, we had to keep moving.

We spent most of the night picking our way through the densest parts of the forest hoping that it might help slow the thing down enough that it wouldn't easily catch up to us. If we could make it to morning we would be safe, or at least safer, that much we knew for certain.

We had never seen anything like it during the day and we couldn't figure out how something so fierce had managed to elude our daylight wanderings. After a while we stopped hearing it and headed for the temple, it was almost an hour before sunrise and with how far we had run it would take us a while to get back. Then halfway back we heard it again, the blood curdling howl accompanied by falling trees. We were out of the densest parts of the forest now and there were few enough trees between us and it that it was making incredible time gaining on us. We were all exhausted from the fighting and running, and Talon and I were getting hungry.

I decided to push my abilities to the limit and try to get everyone as close to the temple as fast as possible. "I have an idea..."

"If it's what I think you're thinking then don't you can't carry that much weight yet and even if you could you wouldn't make it very far going that fast." Talon knew me to well sometimes, and he was usually right.

"But what about what happened earlier? With the rock slide"

"What about it? We still don't know how it happened and we only moved behind the boulder we were standing next to. Trying to go from here to the temple would be suicide." Fel had once again sided with my brother and as vexing as it was Fel was usually right as well.

"Well so is not trying. It's catching up to us and it killed that bone snake faster than we ever could have." They continued on in silence for a minute as we picked up the pace.

"Fine we will try to out run it with _our_ speed. You take Fel and get him to the temple and I will make it as far as I can as fast as I can until you get back alright?" I was stunned at first, my brother was admitting I was right, to some extent. If the circumstances had been better I would have smiled and gloated then and there, but they weren't so I would have to lord it over him later.

"Alright, let's do this." The silver and gold sleeves began to shimmer, and we were off. I grabbed Fel and, giving it my all, launched past Talon who with his own limits shattered sped up as well.

Even though he couldn't keep up with me with the silver sleeve he would have easily outpaced me otherwise. It was a bit of a strain on my speed carrying a bot, even one as small and light as Fel, but that didn't stop me from pushing my limits. Three and a half minutes later I nearly collapsed at the bottom of the temple stairs with Fel, half supporting me when I set him down he looked at me with concern evident on his face. I took a minute to catch my breath before turning to head back, I hesitated at the cliff looking down on the scene unfolding below, Talon and the nightmare had made it farther than I thought they would have, it would only take me about a minute to get to Talon, but he didn't have that long before it got to him, if he was lucky he would have less than 30 seconds.

My eyes widened and my mind slowed, as I dropped off of the cliff the only thought in my mind was to go faster, so faster I went using gravity as my ally I felt a warmth spread through me, smothering the cold of the dread and pushing me forward ever faster. The silver sleeve glistened in the breaking of the dawn, casting silver shimmers over my dark purple fur and back over the dark stripes on my quills. I couldn't lose him to. Not after we put all this effort into training. Not after getting this far. Not after losing our parents to Salem... The world around me seemed to slow down as we all neared the bottom of the cliff. Then as the thing pounced I struck it in the chest with a resounding Boom. I felt bone and muscle give way and then bounce violently back, throwing me into a tree. Just as the sun crested the peaks the world began to dim, I could hear my brother whispering something to me but I couldn't hear him he was so quiet. Slowly I relaxed, feeling the tension leave my body as my aching muscles went limp and the already dim world slipped into darkness again.

**And that is it for chapter three! Hope you enjoyed it, feedback is welcomed. Thanks.**


	4. Shards and Fragments

**Thank you to everyone who has been reading this, even though it still has a long way to go I appreciate the views.**

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch.4 Shards and Fragments**

I woke up in my room, light streaming though the window. The last thing I could remember was Talon standing over me, trying to say something to me... I jolted upright only to realize just how much of a mistake that had been. Searing pain shot through my body and I dropped right back into the bed hissing in pain.

I lay there for a while, reviewing the last few moments that I remembered. I had practically jumped off of that cliff without a moment's hesitation and somehow managed to survive, that and the impact with the nightmarish creature at the bottom. I winced at the memory.

I had never pushed myself so far past my limits and my body had paid the price. Every muscle aced and every fiber of my being wanted to do it again for some strange reason, but not until I could stand again. I could have sworn I had seen a blue light right before impact though. I couldn't begin to imagine where it had come from and the warmth, the total confidence that I had somehow found beyond the dread while charging down the cliff, it was all beyond me at the moment so I turned my thoughts elsewhere.

I tried to sit up again, slowly this time, and was relieved to find myself in much less pain than the first time. My body was stiff and refused to move as well as I wanted it to but honestly I was just relived to be alive. I wanted to get up and see how everyone else was, to see if Talon was alright.

I heard movement outside my door, then knocking "Hey sleepy head you up yet?" Talon pushed the door open as he asked. A genuine smile spread across his face when he saw me sitting up. "Glad you're awake. I brought food." and indeed he was. I had no idea how long I had been out but I was starving and the food in his hands looked and smelled like heaven to me.

"Yes, food..." I took the tray and nearly inhaled every last crumb, ignoring the pain radiating from my arms. Of course Talon sat down in a chair next to my bed that I hadn't noticed before, and I was sure that it didn't originally belong in my room. Wiping crumbs from my face I finally asked, "So how long was I out for?"

"Almost a week..." Looking incredibly uncomfortable with the subject all of a sudden I wanted to ask why but I was interrupted.

"Hey Talon! When you get done with..." Fel had run down the corridor and stuck his head into my room before he stopped and stared, dumbstruck for a few seconds. "Oh my god you're awake!" his face lit up with a smile and he rushed over to hug me before stopping himself remembering that I was injured. He settled for waving his arms around awkwardly and making strange happy expressions, speechless for the first time since I had met him.

"Was I really out for a week?"

"Yeah and we all thought you might not wake up for a few more days, it was nerve wracking let me tell you." Fel was running on turbo charge, he was so excited, neither me nor my brother could get a word in edgewise and it didn't help that he didn't need to stop for air, "Do you have any idea how cool you looked when you charged down that cliff? At first I thought you had lost it but then when I ran over to the edge I saw how fast you were going and it was like, No way. There is no way she's going that fast, then when you hit the Werebeast It was like BOOM! He didn't stand a chance! You both flew in opposite directions and when me 'n Maxis went down to help Talon was trying to wake you up and the Werebeast was already dead! I've never seen anything like it, not even the old geezer can kill a Werebeast in one shot!"

The room was silent long enough that Fel felt the need to speak up again "The old geezer will want to know you're awake, I'll be back in a bit." He then raced off out the door and down the stairs.

"Well that was exciting, did I really hit it that hard?" I couldn't help but be proud of myself for that one. I had never even dreamed of being so fast, it had been phenomenal. Like I could run on forever, or at least until I got hungry, or tired, but the possibilities seemed endless.

"Yes you did. How you managed it though..." I could see the Questioning look he gave me when he didn't quite understand why or how I had done something.

"Did I look as cool as Fel made it sound?"

"No, it was even cooler, you went so fast you made a sonic boom on impact." My eyes went wide and Talon chuckled. "Just don't hit anything the next time you decide to go that fast K? I don't want you to end up in bed for another week." he was half kidding, which was better than being depressed and avoiding the subject altogether. Fel had a contagious enthusiasm that was hard to avoid.

I heard foot steps outside again, "She's really awake! Come on, come on!" It was obvious that Fel couldn't hold back any more of his enthusiasm by the time Maxis made it up the stairs so he just left the old fox out in the hall and rushed back into the room practically jumping for joy. "Whoooo!"

"Fel calm down already! You're going to break something if you don't pay attention." Maxis walked over to the doorway but didn't enter. I couldn't really blame him either, there wasn't much space left in the room with Fel practically bouncing off the walls. "Good to see you awake Whisper." he gave one of his rare smiles and went right back to scolding Fel, who was still rocketing around the room like a little kid.

"So, you'll never guess what we found while you were asleep." I gave Talon a questioning stare, confused as to what he could have possible found. "You get three guesses, and the first two don't count." The devious grin on his face could only mean a couple things, either he found a girlfriend while I was out or they found a fragment. Wonder and awe spread over my face as he pulled a sparkling yellow emerald out. We now had two of the fragments needed to open the portal and defeat Salem, unfortunately so did he. Four of the emeralds had now been found, red, yellow, white, and green. With only three left the race had officially begun.

"Hey over here! I found one!" When I was strong enough to go back to training at night with the other two a few days later we had gone hunting for monsters this time instead of letting them hunt us. It felt a whole lot safer now that the Werebeast was dead and we knew more about the other monsters in the area.

Talon had found another bone snake lair and we were hunting the things down in the hopes of finding a few treasures to help us along the way. "Yikes! Careful there's two of them this time." Turns out bone snakes make their homes in places rich in the minerals that crafters use to make weapons and armor. It didn't take much convincing to get me to come along on the boy's nightly raids. I couldn't help but be excited to get back to making things like our parents had done all those years ago and if it helped us collect the fragment emeralds and defeat Salem. "Whisper they're headed your way!"

I easily dodged the first one and struck the second one as it tried to ambush me from behind the first one. Fel charged up his cannon as Talon finished off the first snake, "Shit, Fel not in the cave!"

Too late he fired, catching the second bone snake off guard. The stone around us trembled before crumbling like sand around us, thankfully we were all ready to run before we were trapped. "Everyone all right?"

"Fel. Seriously?!" Fel looked sheepishly at Talon as he punched him in the shoulder. I took that as a good sign and that was that. No minerals from that cave.

"So any idea where we find another one before sunrise?" Talon was plainly ignoring Fel but we both knew that wouldn't last very long, there wasn't anyone else to talk to and they were best friends, not much explanation needed there.

We searched for another hour without any luck. It was morning by the time we climbed the stairs to our rooms and collapsed into our respective beds. My mind wandered from the hunt to the shards of glass I had collected my first night out. I rolled over and pulled them out of the bag I had left by the bed. Picking up the purple shard I held it up to the early morning light streaming in through the window and watched as the color danced around the room. It felt so warm in my hand even though it had been in the bag for the past two weeks. I watched the color play on my hand and realized it was the same color as my fur. I sat up and picked up the green one, the same as Talon, Orange, Fel. Even though I couldn't find one that matched Maxis I couldn't help but feel there was something significant about the shards. Then my attention turned to something shining from underneath the bag, Talon had put the fragment down on my table last night when we were trying to figure out how the old fox had teleported with his.

The yellow gem shone with light from within, I couldn't help but think about what the real emeralds were like, and about the heroes from the other world. How many of them were there? What were they like? Were they really heroes? Would they be able to go back to their world after? Would we want them to go back? So many questions and I was getting really tired now. I placed the fragment emerald and the glass shards on the table and snuggled up with the pillow before drifting into dreamland.

I dreamt of another world that night, of heroes this world had never seen. They had it all; speed, strength, intelligence, kindness. But there was a darker side as well; cunning, stealth, power, and instinct. I was walking a fine line between hero and villain, seeking vengeance and freedom, but at what cost? I couldn't help but wonder if there was a price to pay for our freedom from Salem, and if we were willing and able to pay it.

Running through unfamiliar fields, across vast deserts, around bottomless chasms, dodging traffic in enormous cities unlike any I had ever seen. I began to wonder if I was only running in circles when flashes of color started zipping past. I stopped running and was nearly hit by a flash of blue, then a flash of white. I jumped back in time to avoid the flash of yellow and started running again.

The city gave way to an old forest, a light blue and purple flash had joined the flurry of colors. It seemed like the only times the flashes got to close to me was when I stopped or slowed down even though they had no trouble keeping up with me. I took a sharp turn as a red one appeared and nearly sank up to my knees in water when I ran out of the forest into a swamp. I pulled myself up out of the muck and dodged the newest flash of color, green, as it made a go at me from behind. I kept moving forward jumping from one patch of ground to another as I wove my way through the swamp.

Seven colored flashes followed close behind me as I gradually made my way out of the swamp and onto a beach. The change was so sudden I hardly noticed as I ran out of solid ground to run on. I stumbled into the water but the flashes only circled. I got up slowly expecting another to appear or for the ones already there to fly at me again. Nothing.

I reached out to the purple one and they all darted away. "No don't go, please." they circled each other up a small hill overlooking the beach and stopped, circling something.

I trudged up the hill soaking wet, trying to wring the water out of my cloths... for some reason I felt taller. Half way up the hill I looked down and realized I was taller, and older. It took a moment to remember I was dreaming and laughed and imagined my clothes were dry, suddenly they felt lighter. Looking down I laughed again and found that they really had dried themselves, or had I dried them? I continued to the top of the hill, and nearly tripped over my own two feet when I saw that the colorful flashes had slowed down enough to see. They were emeralds, bigger and brighter than the fragments we were trying so hard to collect. They were beautiful, hovering just above the ground at an arm's length around a little purple hedgehog, no more than four or five cradling something against her chest.

She turned and looked at me with her sad green eyes. "Don't let him die. Please, if he dies I will be all alone again." I didn't know what to say, I was looking at myself seven years ago, in a place I had never been before. She/me began to fade slowly, holding out her/my hands, she/I opened them to reveal a single gold colored ring. "Save him, please, find him please." I grabbed the gold ring out of her/my fading hands before it could fade as well and backed up just as she faded away into mist and the emeralds went nuts. They zipped around narrowly missing me as I did everything in my power to dodge them without dropping the ring, I slipped it onto my arm to keep it from getting lost.

The emeralds began to disappear one at a time but not before taking another shot at me first. I was teetering on the edge of the small cliff on one side of the hill when the final gem raced toward me. With nowhere to dodge to I reached my arms out and tried to catch it hopping to at least soften the blow. It plowed into me, sending me over with it clutched in both hands. As I tumbled down I began to wish I was awake back in my room, then the strangest thing happened, I got the same feeling as when the old fox had used the green fragment to teleport us to the temple, only stronger. I went from falling to being pulled through what seemed like an endless absence of everything.

The Yellow gem glowed brighter and brighter until I found myself sitting up in my bed gasping for breath with sweat pouring down my back. I closed my eyes trying to slow my breathing down, hopping that the others hadn't woken up because of a nightmare.

I put my hand to my forehead and froze when I saw the glisten of gold around my wrist. I jumped out of bed and over to the small mirror across from the window. A sigh of relief escaped when I saw that I was still the me that had gone to bed, no older and no younger. Then I remembered the emerald. I dug through the bed first thinking it would be the most obvious place to find it, when I didn't find it there I searched the floor, then the rest of the room even going so far as to pull the mattress off the bed. Nothing. I gave up and sank to the floor in the midafternoon light. I sat there examining the gold ring until my stomach rumbled, telling me to find some food. I made my way down for food and almost ran into Maxis while rounding the last corner into the kitchen.

"Well aren't you up early." The old fox was in a good mood this morning and I didn't want to spoil that by telling him about my dream so I said a polite greeting and ran off to get food. It didn't take long for the boys to make their way down, probably lead by the smell of food, and start asking questions.

"Whoa, cool bracelet, where'd you find it?"

"Oh, just found it lying around this morning while digging through some old things." _lie_

"Cool, I wonder if there's any other interesting things lying around?"

"Probably, in the parts of the temple no one goes into anymore at least." _half truth_

"Awesome, let's go look for some before training tonight Talon! You can come to if you want Whisper."

"No. I'm good. I was going to see if there are enough supplies to make anything out of yet." _truth_

"Ok, suit yourself."

"Let's go Fel."

"See you later guys."

And with that they left to find treasures buried under our very noses. I wasn't sure why I had lied to them or why I didn't feel very guilty about it, what bothered me was that I had woken up with something from a dream and I wasn't the only one who could see it.


	5. Emeralds

**This chapter is a little short but I hope it ties a couple of things together nicely.**

**Things Whispered Only In The Shadows**

**Ch5. Emeralds**

The day continued as if nothing unusual had happened, as if I weren't wearing a gold ring from a dream, and possibly another world, around my wrist. I was curious as to what it was, what it was for, and what it could do. Being a crafter, I knew when a ring was more than a ring, figuring out how much more was a different matter altogether.

I found myself working more towards finding the purpose of the ring than actually working on assessing the supplies and crafting. Finally, frustrated and needing a break, I went back to my room to let off some steam and hopefully forget about the problems I was facing before training tonight. It wasn't like I could have archived anything if I had tried to craft with so much on my mind, after all crafting was a delicate skill used to manipulate the energies of objects and channel them into materials to create powerful tools and armor.

I gently stroked the scarf around my neck that my parents had put so much time and effort into. I couldn't even begin to fathom the concentration needed to put so much power into something made from materials that a normal crafter would never have used. Metals, jems, and stones were the ideal conduits for crafting because they were uniform and sturdy unlike the gossamer threads intricately woven into the silver sleeve. I couldn't deny that it was sturdy and reliable but it was so light and airy that it was easy to forget.

I flopped down onto my bed and pulled the end of my scarf loose to watch the beaded edge drape over the bed. I watched the steel grey stone beads for a bit, letting my eyes wander as I relaxed. My gaze fell on the table I had left the bag on with the yellow fragment emerald, and its larger twin sitting right beside it.

I bolted upright and grabbed both of the emeralds, one in each hand, stumbling out of the bed and almost into the door. Attempting to regain my composure and my footing I settled for sitting in a chair as tears welled up in my eyes.

I gingerly tucked the two yellow emeralds away, making sure they wouldn't fall out if jostled them around and headed down for tonight's training. When I got down the mountain I greeted the old fox, still in a daze. "Maxis?"

"Yes Whisper? Is everything alright?" He sounded as concerned as he looked, putting a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I nodded slowly, "Yes, I think so. I've just been thinking... how powerful are the real emeralds compared to the fragments?" I hopped he wouldn't ask why.

He went from concerned to surprised and concerned in an instant, then thoughtful and relaxed some. "Well, a great deal more powerful I would assume, after all they divided a world in to two, four hundred some years ago and could also recombine them once again, whereas the fragments only have the power to temporarily connect the worlds, or travel between them."

I let it all sink in for a while before asking another clearly suspicious question. "Would we still need the fragment emeralds if we could find the real emeralds?"

He almost chuckled and eyed me curiously, I held my breath. "You sure do know which questions to ask to make an old fox suspicious. No but like I said before, the real emeralds are in the original world." My face turned red from holding my breath like a lifeline and he must have taken it as me blushing from embarrassment.

Maxis patted my head and went over to see what kind of trouble the boys had gotten into, I could hear Fel cussing from across the clearing. As soon as he was out of earshot I gasped for air. I couldn't believe I had lied to him, or at least kept that kind of secret from him no them. I hadn't told any of them and even though I knew that I should and that it wasn't too late to tell them, I didn't want to explain what had happened in the dream. The very idea of becoming that sad, frightened little version of me was terrifying, and to tell them it was all a part of a dream. They would all laugh or worse think that I was making things up and just didn't want to tell them how I had really gotten it.

"Hey Whisper!" I visibly jumped when Fel interrupted my train of thought. He laughed, "You had such a serious look on your face. Come on let's get moving, suns already setting." the orange cat waved me over to the edge of the clearing and didn't look back.

"Oh! Wait up!" I couldn't dwell on it too long, I had training to do and distractions would land me in bed for another week. I trotted after them and another night began.

The forest leaves stretched out in every direction beckoning me to discover the secrets hidden beyond. Of course I already knew what lie beyond the dense foliage. I had trained here for almost four years, longer than my brothers had bothered to stick around, and knew the mountains and valleys like my own back yard. Of course they kind of were my back yard since I lived in the temple nestled between the highest peaks.

Talon and Fel had gone off in search of the fragments just days after completing their training, I on the other hand had stuck around to brush up on my skills alone. I didn't want to get caught off guard and not be able to rely upon my own strength, and I wanted to get some secret training in with the _real_ yellow emerald. Talon had taken the fragment with him for 'safe keeping' even though he and Fel couldn't use it. The old fox had ceased to observe my progress every night, shortly after the boys had left on their glorified treasure hunt, and now preferred to spend his free time studying the temple and the surrounding ruins looking for more clues to aid us in our fight against Salem and his growing empire.

I ducked as a tree sailed past my head and crashed behind me, leapt sideways to avoid a massive clawed hand, and spun around the enormous figure of an alpha Werebeast. This was _my_ hunting ground and the intruder was _not_ welcome here. The sound of stone sliding into a hardened leather sheath was followed by the pained cry from the injured alpha. I rarely killed now, I didn't have to, well not often anyways. I could easily get my point across without endangering my life or theirs. The injured Werebeast tucked its fluffy tail between its legs and beat a hasty retreat back to its own territory, it would think twice before expanding this way again any time soon.

Today the boys were returning with the spoils of war and hopefully another fragment emerald, if not then we were one step closer to having to steal Salem's emeralds out from under him. I snickered at the thought of him waking up to find he had been robbed of the only things keeping him in power.

"So that is where you have been hiding." Fel had matured as much as Talon had even though he hadn't changed appearance wise, he was a robot after all. "You do know that a better hiding spot for you would have been somewhere with a little less green, you know what with the purple and black motif you got going on." But Fel was still Fel no matter how much he had matured. On the other hand his synthetic orange fur and dark brown and black stripes made him harder to spot in the tangled undergrowth.

"Relax robocat just because you had a hard time finding her doesn't mean you get to rub in the fact that she doesn't blend in as well as we do." If I hadn't been expecting him I would have jumped out of my quills. Talon was sitting on the branch above me, green on green and silent until otherwise desired. I took a pebble from my pocket and chucked it at his head, which he dodged expertly by sliding down to the branch in front of me, smiling all the while.

"Good to see your little vacation hasn't dulled your reflexes, if anything I think you may have gotten a bit better." I teased, then tossing my bag over my shoulder I turned and nodded to Fel, "Race you back slowpokes!"

It took all of three minutes to cross the forest and make it back up the mountain before waiting another four before Talon, and eventually Fel made it there as well. Memories of losing so many child hood races to Talon had wiped clean any chance of mercy, although I did kind of feel sorry for Fel once in a while. "What's the matter can't keep up Talon?" I had waited _years_ to say that to him, and now that I could say it all I wanted I decided that once was more than enough to get my point across.

"So I see you got faster," Talon couldn't hide his surprise at the sheer scale of improvement and I couldn't help but soak up the moment.

"Dude. Faster's an understatement, she made a sonic boom halfway here."

"And I was taking my time." One more jab.

"But can she hold it for more than a couple minutes now?" Counter jab. Nice one.

"I will take you on anytime, anywhere and for any length of time you think you need to win." I could run at supersonic speeds for almost an hour now and even though I could only hold my max speed for about five minutes he didn't need to know that.

"So guess who found a fragment emerald. Go ahead, guess." We shook our heads and rolled our eyes, waiting for him to finish gloating. I couldn't blame him really, I could easily outshine him by showing him the one _I_ found, but if I told him I had a real one I would have a _LOT_ of explaining to do. "This guy, that's who!" Yep, still the same old Fel. We congratulated him on the way into the temple.

Making our way to the sanctuary where Maxis was doing the majority of his research of late, we ducked and dodged as various books and research papers flew across the room. The old fox was in a frenzy looking for something and not finding it, I told him to organize his disaster zone months ago but he insisted that he knew precisely where everything was. I dodged a particularly heavy looking book as it sailed past my head. I heard Talon curse a couple of times after getting hit and Fel was making us both look like armatures, strolling through the onslaught as if it weren't even there, not a single thing touching him. "Hey, long time no see old geezer. What you looking for?" Things stopped flying at us as the grey fox turned his attention to Fel. His face lit up at the sight of his protégé and eventual successor.

"Good to see you again Fel, and you as well Talon. Say have either of you boys seen a box about this big lying around? Or perhaps it was a satchel..." The level of concentration he showed at his own question was amusing to say the least and slightly disturbing. Maxis never forgot what he was looking for until he found it, if he found it, and certainly not something so important that he would tear the place apart looking for it.

"What was in it?" Talons curiosity always got the better of him, if there was something to find he wanted to know. "Maybe it fell out or something, we could help look for it."

"No, no it can wait, now that you two are back we can eat a proper meal together. You must be starving after your journey." I snickered again, the way he said it made it sound like they couldn't scrounge up a decent meal on their own while they were away.

We all made a b-line for the dining table almost tripping over one another in the process. The room seemed a lot smaller now that we had grown, but that was fine, in fact it made the room feel all the more full of the people we cared about. Maxis had truly outdone himself this time, by the time we were done we were so full we didn't want to move, let alone make our way to bed. But like always Maxis sent us on our way, too full or not we headed up the long flight of stairs.

My room felt warmer that night, the good kind of warm where the world seems right at least for a little while. I drifted off thinking of the small family that had pulled itself together around me from the fragmented pieces of things that used to be and how it had made something new and strong, not quite whole yet, but strong.


	6. Truths and Lies

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch6. Truths and Lies**

I watched the sunlight creep across the floor for an hour, just watching. I wasn't sure what was bothering me but something was off. I sat up, taking my time as the morning steadily crept into the afternoon, the yellow emerald sitting in my lap I sighed. I was getting nowhere, I had been practicing my teleportation ever since I had obtained the emerald. It had gone well and I had found that there were so many other things that I could use the energy for.

Apparently solving an unknown problem wasn't one of them, not like I had expected it to anyway I just couldn't shake the feeling and the emerald made me feel a lot safer, more in control. I sighed and got up, thinking myself in circles was getting me nowhere and it was almost evening now. If I wanted _cooked_ food I would need to get it now, once outside there would be little time to cook.

I almost had enough materials for a proper weapon and tonight I would retrieve the last of a large vein of minerals to complete my first, and possibly last, creation. Sure I had made a lot of things with my parents or Maxis but none of them were my own, I had always had their help. This would be my masterpiece.

"Where did I put that blasted thing!" On my way past the main sanctuary I could hear Maxis and the others still digging for the thing that he had been looking for when they had arrived. Grinning to myself I quickly snuck past, I would let them find their own lost toys. I had more important things to do. Like practicing with an emerald that shouldn't exist in this world, and finding materials for a weapon that I promised my parents I would never make.

When I made it to the cave a few minutes later I felt a sharp tug on my body. It was strange, like I was going to teleport but more like I was being pulled by someone. I ignored it since I was clearly still where I was supposed to be and nothing else had happened. I found the mineral vein deep within the cavern and felt another, stronger tug. I stopped collecting the minerals and pulled the emerald out, it was the only thing I could think of that could do anything like what was happening. It was shining brighter than usual and getting brighter. I would have dropped it had I not needed it so badly, and as far as I knew the emeralds were controlled by whom ever had them, which is why I was now so confused. The light intensified again, I had to shut my eyes in the now illuminated cave to avoid going blind. I was yanked forward, stumbling a couple steps forward and catching myself I opened my eyes again.

The emerald had stopped glowing and it seemed like it was back to its normal self, but I wasn't in the cave any more.

White, empty space spread out before me in every direction, I couldn't tell the difference between the floor and the sky? Or maybe it was a high ceiling, or just emptiness, no not quite empty. In the distance I could make out a figure, maybe two? It was all so confusing, the dream I had years ago and come back with a real emerald had made more sense than this empty place.

I jogged over toward the figure(s) and found that they were further away than I originally thought. I was running now trying to get there, they were distinctly two people now, at least I was getting closer. Two hedgehogs, no that was wrong, as I got close enough I slowed down and saw that one of the two was an echidna, a rare sight for sure. The other was definitely a hedgehog, but unlike any hedgehog I had ever seen his fur was black streaked with red on the tips of his quills and along his arms and legs. His eyes were the same striking red. I wondered how they had gotten here, and where here was. Had an emerald brought them to this blank space as well?

"I told you I could find it with the master emerald." the echidna spoke, pride dripping from his words and an arrogant smile plastered to his face. The hedgehog ignoring him, his eyes locked on me, giving me a look that said he was sizing me up. Didn't he know how to smile? Then again they might be prepared for a fight if they were looking for the emerald.

I was suddenly embarrassed to be holding the real emerald, if they were from the other world then it might appear that I had stolen the emerald, which I sort of had done, unintentionally of course. I must have stood there holding the emerald for a while just staring at the two of them not saying anything.

"Well?" The black hedgehog finally spoke, raising an eyebrow and giving me a 'what are you waiting for' kind of look.

I blushed, "Who are you?" it sounded better in my head, not quite so confused and unsure of myself. I hadn't spoken to anyone other than Fel, Maxis, and Talon in so long I almost forgot what talking to other people was like.

"I believe that is what we should be asking you." The black hedgehog was getting impatient now. I was getting frustrated. I was grateful when the echidna spoke up again.

Pointing to the black and red hedgehog, "Sorry about him, he can be a bit _rude_ sometimes. I'm Knuckles, the stick in the mud over here is Shadow." Shadow humphed but otherwise ignored the comment and kept trying to stare me down. He wasn't getting the outcome he wanted, unless he was trying to rile me up.

"My names Whisper, I don't quite understand what's going on. How did I get here?" I must have said something amusing because Knuckles and Shadow looked at each other and then back at me.

"I asked the master emerald to bring you, or rather to help us find the missing chaos emerald, and here we are." My eyes went wide, I had no idea that the emerald could be controlled by someone other than the one who had it. Wait, master emerald?

"Wait, whoa there's _another_ emerald? I thought there were just the seven fragment emeralds and the seven real er... chaos emeralds." How many freaking emeralds were there? I was having trouble keeping up now, trying to put it all together at once and failing miserably.

Surprise colored Knuckles face, while Shadow only raised his other eyebrow. "You know about the chaos emeralds and you don't know about the master emerald? And what in the world is a fragment emerald?" Knuckles scoffed

"So there are seven more emeralds that we didn't know about. So much for knowing everything there is to know about the chaos emeralds, not like that is to surprising." He was casual with his insult, then switched his attention to me. "However, there is the problem of you being in position of one of our emeralds. Now if you would kindly hand it over we will send you back to where ever it is you come from unharmed and be on our way." He took a step forward and held out his hand.

I took a step back and readied the emerald for a fight, I shifted into a defensive stance that I could easily turn into an attack if necessary.

"Shadow! What are you doing? We need to get the emerald back not beat up some poor girl to get it!" Knuckles had grabbed Shadow by the wrist to try and stop him.

Although I was somewhat offended at being called some poor girl I hesitated at the chance to avoid a fight. Shadow gave him a look that would kill if it could have but didn't move.

"I don't know exactly what is going on but I can't give you the emerald back, not yet, I need it for..." Shadow pulled his hand from Knuckles grip and stalked toward me.

"If you won't give it to me then I will take it by force."

"Shadow! Stop, at least listen to what she has to say first!" Knuckles was trying to get a hold of him now, without luck.

"Why? If we cannot reason with her then what is the point?" he didn't take his eyes off of me for a second. Everything about him said he was capable and willing to kick my ass to get what he wanted, and every fiber of my being was screaming for me to get out of there. He was powerful and I had something he wanted. It was a bit like facing Salem without any weapons or allies, only I knew that if I gave him what he wanted he would leave me alone. Well at least until we came for the emeralds again.

I stopped retreating and calmed down. Now was NOT the time to be cowering or running. I may not be as powerful but I was more than good enough to surprise him. He obviously didn't think much of me, and that was my advantage.

He was still coming toward me, avoiding Knuckles he pulled out a red gem of his own. I froze for a moment looking at the twin of the fragment that had killed my parents. "Chaos control." I shook the feeling off just in time to watch Shadow disappear.

"Shit!" I dodged to the side just as he lunged from behind me, he could use them to... I teleported above him, trying to be less predictable than him only to find a counter strike waiting for me. I dodged it and circled around him, hopping that a direct attack would work better. He slammed me down hard before I could pick up any speed. He was fast, that was bad.

I had somehow managed to keep a hold on the chaos emerald and used it to put as much distance between him and me as I could. What was that he had said? Chaos control? Was that a command for the emerald? If so then that would explain why it looked so much easier for him to use the gems power.

"You can't disappear here. There is nowhere to hide." I had teleported a good ways behind him in the hopes that I could buy myself a couple seconds. He spotted me just in time for me to take off. I lunged as fast as I could and pushed myself as hard as I could, praying I could get enough speed.

"I can't give you the emerald yet!" running toward me he cut the amount of space between us faster than I expected. With a sonic boom we collided, I tried to brace myself when I realized we were essentially mirroring one another's attacks, but I only lessened the blow.

We both went flying in opposite directions, I was the only one to end up sprawled on the ground.

"What the Hell! How?" Knuckles had given up on stopping Shadow and was more interested in the events that had just unfolded. "How can she use one of the chaos emeralds? And did she just..."

"Yes she did, and if she is from another world with its own emeralds then it would stand to reason that she might be able to use the chaos emeralds as well." Shadow had landed on one knee, standing up but not getting closer.

It was Knuckles turn again. He snapped out of his fascination and rushed over to me. I was trying to push myself off of the ground with one hand on my aching ribs when he held a hand out to help me up. I lay there open mouthed for a moment before swiftly shutting it and accepting his help. I winced at the sudden movement, I didn't know if they were trying to help me or kill me at this point. It was a lot like Talon and me trying to get Fel to join one side or another in an argument.

"Are you alright?" He looked at me with genuine concern, making me all the more suspicious. "I'm sorry, are you hurt?" I nodded, I was totally and utterly confused by now and was just going along with whatever happened.

"You two just can't get your stories straight. One of you wants me dead and the other doesn't..."

"I don't want anyone dead. I just want you to hand over the emerald." He was glaring at me again.

"Could have fooled me, and besides I said I would give it to you after I was done with it."

"What _exactly_ do you need the emerald for?" Knuckles was staring at me now too and I was getting uncomfortable.

I pondered the harm in telling them, and then decided it didn't matter much if they knew or not. "I need it to save my world from the bastard that killed my parents."

"This isn't a toy for your revenge." Shadows face had grown darker, his eyes lost their luster. "And besides why do you need one of our emeralds, just use your own."

"It's not like that! And if it were that easy I would have done it already!" I was desperate now, trying to explain myself to someone I hardly knew. "He's taking over everything, killing anyone and everyone in his path. The fragment emeralds aren't strong enough to stop him and even if they were we only have two and I'm almost certain he has four if not all five of the others." that seemed to be enough to win Knuckles over, but not quite the case for Shadow.

"We need to tell Sonic about this." This Sonic character must have been one of the heroes that the old fox had mentioned, if so then did that mean that these two were heroes too? "Shadow I think the emerald is in safe hands at the moment. If we can get the others..."

"So you're just going to believe her? Just like that and you believe her? We don't know anything about her and you want to leave one of the chaos emeralds with her in _another_ world." He was getting angry again, but managed to keep his cool. "Do you have any idea how stupid you sound Knuckles? Seriously, this is almost as bad as you falling for Eggmans lies."

"This is NOT the same, she needs our help. And I only fell for it a couple of times." I was beginning to question my choice in comrades. If they were heroes then we were doomed. Sure they were strong, but that didn't mean much if they killed us or got themselves killed or worse ended up working for Salem instead.

Shadow shook his head sighing. "Knuckles, I don't think you get it. We can't rescue every sorry excuse for a hero that we come across." My desperation evaporated as quickly as it came.

"And why not? We can at least help her help herself can't we? At least until we ask Sonic and the others what they want to do."

"I'm not a hero." They both stopped to stare at me again. Knuckles seemed more confused at the outburst than anything. Shadow on the other hand looked surprised, he hadn't expected that. Good, maybe I still had a chance then. "If I were a hero I wouldn't need to ask for help from people like you. Yes it's pathetic, I know that already. But if it weren't the _fate of my world_ at stake I wouldn't be asking." I closed my eyes hopping he would at least go away. All I got was silence at first.

I heard a heavy sigh before opening my eyes. "Fine... Do what you want." Shadow threw his arms up in aggravation and turned around.

I almost cried as relief washed over me, "Thank you..."choking on my words they sounded so small.

"Don't thank me. I haven't done anything, if anything you should be thanking him. He's the one who wants to help you." Shadow was still facing away from us, his arms crossed.

"Awesome! Now we just have to go find Sonic and then we can get everyone to help you out!"

"Just one problem, you can't just zip off to another world without knowing where you want to go. She would have to be the one to take _us_ there, not the other way around. Then the only way to get all of us there would be to use _all_ of the chaos emeralds, and in case you have forgotten Eggman has three of them and our friend here has one." he had turned to face us again, doubt and disappointment crossing his face.

"Oh, yeah right..."

I couldn't let this opportunity slip. If I could get there help now then we wouldn't need to get the fragments from Salem after all. "Then I will have to come with you. I can help you get the emeralds from this Eggman and then take you to my world so you can help us." Shadow looked less than pleased.

"That is a brilliant idea!" Knuckles brightened up again.

Shadow was doing a lot of sighing, "Grab my hand, I'll take us back to our world..."

Knuckles put his hand on Shadows shoulder and just as I was about to do as he said, the empty world bent.

Yes bent.

I was thrown back, then the world began to warp. "What the..."

"It's destabilizing!"

"It's WHAT!"

"This world is destabilizing! Dammit! I hopped this wouldn't happen." Shadow reached out to me again trying to get close enough.

I shook my head sadly and pulled my emerald out and held it out. Without another option I apologized to them. "Sorry, but it doesn't look like I can go with you." Their eyes went wide and Shadow cursed. "Chaos control!" I felt that familiar pull, I was in my room again.

I didn't even bother getting up, I no longer cared if I finished the sword tonight or not. I cried silently for a while thinking about how I could have saved us so much pain and suffering, if only I had been faster and taken his hand. Eventually I cried myself to sleep.

I didn't dream that night, nor the night after. It was three days before Talon could get me out of my room and another two before I would talk about it to anyone.

"So let me get this straight. You have had a Chaos emerald for _years_ without telling anyone, let alone anyone noticing, but that aside. You went to a pretty much a blank space between worlds and _met_ two of the heroes from the other world, found out there are more of them and that they were willing to help us, and just when you were about to get them to help us the blank world destabilized and you teleported back here _without_ the two heroes that could have at least helped us out in getting the fragments so that we could get the rest of the heroes here." I nodded weakly, avoiding eye contact. Talon had made it sound so much simpler and more my fault than I did. I wouldn't bother arguing with him, I didn't feel like it at the moment.

Fel had been quietly listening the whole time and Maxis was out on one of his rare expeditions looking for more study material that might help him decipher more of the writing in the temple. Fel didn't move, he had his hand on his chin and a very focused look on his face.

"Am I the only one who seems to care that my sister has been Dimension Hopping and came back _crying_ the other night?" I was happy that my safety seemed to be his first concern but he was still angry about that as well. "I hope you know that we are telling Maxis as soon as he gets back. No ifs ands or buts about it." and with that it was final. My life was probably over and I would probably lose the chaos emerald. At least they would have a better chance against Salem with it. I was certain that the old fox could use it almost as well as I could if not better.

I nearly started sobbing again, trying my hardest to hold it in as silent tears streamed down my face.

"Hey, don't cry. We're mad at you not executing you. We're just a bit upset that you kept this a secret and worried that something could have gone wrong and you could have ended up seriously hurt."

I knew that they would most likely only take the emerald from me and I had purposely left out the part where Shadow had attacked me. I sniffled, rubbing my eyes trying to get rid of the tears. I was stronger than this, I didn't want to be but I was.

We went out that night, gathered the materials that I had not gotten the chance to get, and then returned to the temple. I wasn't sure where to start with the weapon so I left it for another day, one when Maxis' potential wrath wasn't looming in my mind.


	7. Surprises

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch7. Surprises.**

Maxis was supposed to be here by now.

I paced by the entrance to the temple, anxious and worried at the same time. Anxious about what the old fox would have to say and worried that it was taking him so long. I now had a gleaming new pair of blades strapped upside down on my back. As peculiar as it looked it was a heck of a lot easier to unsnap them from the sheath and let them drop out than try to pull them over my shoulders in the heat of battle, now they just served as a distraction for my fggiting hands. Talon still gave me grief about it, he had no problems hefting his two handed monstrosity over his shoulder, and Fel didn't see why we bothered if we had emeralds.

Of all the things I had learned about the chaos emerald while waiting to see if I even got to keep it, the best part? Learning that I didn't need it as much as I thought I did. I obviously couldn't teleport without it, but I found I could manipulate the things around me to some extent. Not enough to fight with yet but enough to entertain myself for now.

"You know, if you keep pacing like that you'll wear a rut in the floor." Fels lazy comment was a clear indication of just how board the orange cat was.

Talon looked just as board, chilling on one of the low hanging rafters, looking at the ceiling and close to dozing off.

"Don't sweat it sis. If anything he will be more thrilled to hear that we have one of the real emeralds, sure he may be a little disappointed you didn't tell us a couple years ago. But hey, we got two of the fragments to boot."

I didn't know if he was trying to cheer me up or trying to make me worry more. I gave a loud sigh and stopped pacing, settling for examining the yellow gem. "I'm more worried about how long it's taking the old fox to get here. He's rarely late for anything."

"He probably found something fascinating on the way here and lost track of time." Fel rolled his eyes and made an elaborate gesture at the word fascinating.

Fel had a point, Maxis did have a habit of losing track of time when he found something interesting. Even so, he was more than a day late, he wasn't _that_ bad at keeping track of time was he? I started pacing again. "Still I can't help but worry."

"So who wants to bet how much junk he's bringing back this time?" I rolled my eyes so he looked up at Talon but got no answer. "Dude?" We could hear soft snoring coming from above now. I sputtered out a laugh that I couldn't contain. Fel's mouth was hanging open and indignation slowly crept onto his face. "Dude!"

Talon slept soundly through the outburst and the following tantrum as Fel attempted to get the attention of the sleeping green hedgehog. My ear twitched at a small clatter just outside. Just over the last steps the old fox hauled something on a sled. Why he had a sled on the top of a mountain in the middle of the summer was beyond me, so I had to find out. I nudged Fel and headed out to greet Maxis without looking away from the sled.

Curiosity had always been a weakness of mine, and now everything I had been worrying over or hoping for had disappeared from my mind.

Maxis effortlessly pulled the makeshift roped together branch sled across the short expanse between the top of the stairs and the front entrance. He stopped when I ignored his weary greeting and walked around him to see the contents of the sled. I understood immediately why it had taken him an extra day to get here. On the sled lie the unconscious form of a girl, her pale bluish white fur was stained with dirt and probably blood and her cloths were in ruins. She couldn't have been much older than talon, if not a little younger. Fel was beside me in moments after I had stopped to stare, he stopped to do the same. Talon followed, rubbing the short nap from his eyes and waves to the old grey fox. "What 'cha looknin' at?" still not fully awake Talon stretched his arms and stopped dead in his tracks, eyes glued to the young woman.

She groaned and began to stir, then her dark eyes fluttered open. "Where are we? Ow." She put one delicate hand on her head and winced. As far as social graces went we were all a bit lacking but then again how do you greet someone in her situation properly?

Luckily Maxis saved us from an embarrassing introduction. "This is the place I told you about my dear, this is the temple I call home, and these are my friends Fel, Talon, and Whisper." he pointed to each of us in turn and her gaze followed and lingered on me when there was no one left to introduce. I couldn't say for sure but for a moment I could have sworn that her midnight blue eyes grew a shade darker, if that were even possible, as they rested on me but it was gone in an instant.

None of us knew what to say, except Fel "What the hell happened to you?" My jaw dropped at how clueless he could be at times.

I was waiting for Talons reaction when I noticed he was still staring at her the same way he had been before she woke up. I stepped in front of him and waved my hand in front of his face. "Hellooo, anyone home? Reality to Talon." He snapped out of it and blushed nearly turning from a green hedgehog to a red one. I cocked an eyebrow at that. I had never, and I mean _never_ seen him act like this before. "Welcome back _oh fearless leader_." he pointedly ignored me and walked past me.

He knelt down beside the sled, "Can you stand?" she nodded slowly her gaze shifting between me and Talon. "Good, here I'll help you to a spare room, we can get you fixed up in there." he offered a hand that she took gratefully but with a hint of caution and curiosity on her face. "So we never got _your_ name." he smiled not looking away for more than a few seconds at a time.

It was her turn to blush, "Rune." she looked away then, avoiding any further eye contact with any of us. I grinned to myself as the others followed the two hedgehogs through the doorway. This is going to be fun.

It was late afternoon by the time anyone even remembered that we hadn't told Maxis about the real emerald. Everyone was so focused on our new visitor that it hadn't even crossed our minds. Fel was the one to blurt it our first. "Oh yeah! Maxis! You'll never believe what Whisper got a hold of." This got everyone's immediate attention.

"We did forget about that didn't we." Talon looked thoughtful for a moment then expectant. I wasn't going to weasel my way out of this one. I rubbed the back of my neck with my hand whilst trying to look calm, and failed miserably.

"Oh is that so? What did you find?" Straight to the point then. I couldn't find the words to tell him what I had found without making it sound like I had been hiding our best chance of actually winning against Salem, so I set the emerald down on the table and Talon catching on did the same. Maxis was confused at first, and when Talon set his yellow emerald next to mine he looked even more confused. When it finally dawned on him that there were two yellow emeralds in front of him of different sizes the confusion gave way to astonishment. He sat down heavily in his chair, not daring to believe at first. He slowly picked each emerald up in his hands, disbelief outweighed by the sudden tears that sprung forth unchecked. "How." almost inaudible he looked up. "How did you get this? It shouldn't be possible, but here before me... how..." I didn't want to sully the moment by telling him how long I had it but the secret was weighing on me.

"I'm not entirely sure _how_ but," I took a deep breath, time to get it over with. "I found it in a dream a year after we started training. I thought it was just a strange dream at first but then I found this in my room that night. It's also where I got the golden ring." I lifted my arm up weakly, showing the gold ring around my wrist. There was a long silence before any one spoke.

"So, what are those exactly?" I had forgotten Rune was in the room with us. "I mean obviously they are some big deal and if you don't want to tell me that's fine." that was the most I had ever heard her say. Then again I had only known her for a few hours. "But it would be nice not being left in the dark." I almost laughed at the last part. Yes indeed it would be nice to not be left in the dark, but that seemed to be the only place we were lately was in the dark.

Maxis had regained enough composure to answer her. "That's right you don't know about them yet. These are Fragment emeralds," he set his emerald next to Talons and they shined a little brighter. "There are seven of them altogether, each a different color, each with the same power. Together they have the power to help defeat Salem and bring peace to this world or, in the wrong hands, help him destroy what's left of it." She looked thoughtful, he continued. "This," gesturing to the larger yellow gem, "is a Chaos emerald. One of the original emeralds that separated this world from Mobius four hundred years ago. When this world and Mobius separated the fragment emeralds separated from the original seven Chaos emeralds and became a part of this world while the chaos emeralds stayed on Mobius." I had never heard this version of the story before and now he had us all mesmerized by the story. "No one knows why exactly the worlds were split in two, only that one day when the emeralds became one again that so too would the worlds become one. In order to bring the worlds back together again you need _both_ sets of emeralds. Luckily only one set is needed to travel between the worlds."

"Wait, so what you're saying is that you need all seven of the emeralds to travel between worlds?" Fel was the first to catch the irregularities as always, and Maxis nodded. "So then how did Whisper do it?" again the old fox was unusually silent and only shook his head, looking back to the impossible emerald sitting before them.

I went to sleep that night knowing that there was one more person who knew our secrets and that there was yet another mystery laid out before us. I drifted off thinking of that other place, Mobius. A strange name but somehow familiar. Like an old friend that you had forgotten you once knew. It didn't take long to find myself dreaming about it again. Only this time it seemed less real.

I was on the beach again with a light house overlooking the hill/cliff I had fallen from. It was day this time and just as beautiful as it was that night. The water shimmered in the golden sun's rays while the waves lapped at the sand. I walked along the beach away from the light house a ways until I almost lost sight of it before finding myself in front of some sort of resort.

It looked like it had been slightly scorched by some sort of small fire on one side but otherwise the one story grass roofed, stone building was in pristine condition. It had an elaborate entrance lined with tacky art, probably to attract people to stay there. I didn't understand why anyone would want to stay somewhere so unguarded and shoddily built. One well-placed attack from a monster would send this place sky high.

I walked past it and noticed chairs lined up on the hot sand, some with umbrellas and others without. The people here were lounging about in the sun or splashing about in the shallows. I couldn't wrap my head around how oblivious to potential danger they all seemed and how happy they all were about it.

I almost ran into someone on their way out of what I could only assume was a bathroom by the way it smelled. "Sorry." but he ignored me with a look of disgust on his face, from the restroom I guessed, he didn't have to be so rude.

I walked around a while longer before I came upon some kids building a small castle out of sand.

What I would have given to have that kind of childhood, that kind of carefree joy.

They were interrupted by an older boy who ran through their castle with a gleeful yell as his friends followed him, destroying anything he left behind. I chased after them intending to chew them out for making the little kids cry, "Hey you three!" only to be ignored yet again. I reached to grab the first boy by his shirt only to find my hand passed straight through him.

I stopped dead in my tracks and looked at my hand, it looked solid enough. I swallowed and walked over to one of the umbrella chairs and reached for the arm to lean on. It was solid. I bent down to kneel on the sand to find its gritty texture firmly beneath me, but when I went to scoop some of it up and run it through my fingers, they ran through it like they had the kid. That would explain a few things. I pushed the panic back down my throat with a swallow and took a long, deep breath. So I was invisible, I could deal with that, I couldn't influence the things around me instead I would just pass right through them. I swallowed again at the thought of slipping through the ground into darkness. It didn't appear as if that was likely to happen though seen as how it hadn't happened yet. I only passed through things that I tried to move, so as long as I don't try to dig any holes with my entire body I should be fine, or I hoped so anyway.

My ears twitched at the sound of panicked shouts in the distance. I spun around to meet a foe that probably couldn't see or hear me and that I couldn't touch.

A huge robot loomed over the other end of the beach, it was nearly four stories tall and had, no joke, shark heads for hands and a wicked set of shark teeth on its otherwise normal robotic face. I started to run over to help only to remember I couldn't do anything when I sailed through its leg. That's when I noticed the small army of smaller bots behind it, making me feel even more useless.

A loud motor above me made me look up to see a flying machine zoom past with a little fox and a blue hedgehog on board. The yellow/orange fox seemed to be in control of the machine while the hedgehog jumped off, my eyes grew wide as I watched him plummet only to crash into one of the smaller bots and go on a bot destroying rampage. He seemed fine after the fall and in fact seemed to be having a blast. He shouted insults to someone he called egghead and when the flying machine came around a second time it fired on the larger bot before dropping another hedgehog into the fray. This time it was a Pink one with an enormous hammer, smashing everything that got in her way.

I jumped as a large round man in a red suit of some kind laughed/chuckled behind me. "HOHOHOHOHO! Nice try Sonic, but you'll never defeat my newest creation with pathetic attacks like that! You don't stand a chance against the Mega-Sharkbot!" He was right about the guns not doing jack to it but they didn't seem worried.

The blue hedgehog replied with a grin, "We'll see about that Egghead!" Wait sonic? Wasn't that the name that knuckles had mentioned? Then that made him one of the heroes! My worries evaporated at the realization that he was one of the heroes that we were trying to get to help save our world. If the bot was as easy as it looked to me, then they would have no trouble walking all over it. As I watched Sonic exchange blows with the large bot his friends, who I now knew are called Amy and Tails, took on the army of minions. I was torn between watching Sonic gradually pummel the larger bot and watching Tails in the flying machine mow down row after row of minions, or Amy simply crushing anything that dared get close to her. I had the feeling that even if I could have joined in I would have been standing here watching instead of helping just like I was now.

Sonic and his friends quickly dealt the final blows and Eggman retreated but before Sonic could peruse him Knuckles erupted from the ground ready for a fight, only to find it was over. "Man. You guys had all the fun without me!" I was right. I was seeing their world, or at least dreaming of it. Knuckles started to say something about the yellow emerald to sonic when the world started to fade.

"No! Not yet, I need to know what he said! I need to find out if they are coming to help us!" I started running toward them but everything faded to black before I could get close.

Shadows swirled around in the darkness, figures just out of the corners of my eyes, just out of view. I began running, trying to get away from the figures, only to find they could keep up with me. So I ran faster, when they began to multiply and gain on me I ran even faster.

I tried to use my silver sleeve but found it gone, and teleporting was useless if I couldn't tell one place from the next. I began to panic, they were gaining again and if I went any faster I would burn out before I would wake up, if I _could_ wake up. I reached back for the emerald and my hand found my swords instead.

I slowed at the realization that I didn't have to run. Even if I couldn't see them outright or look directly at them, I could aim just fine without looking anyway. I dropped my speed and crossed my arms, grasping each of the swords but not drawing them just yet. The figures drew closer and clustered together on the edges of my vision. That's when struck.

Dropping down into a sudden crouch I pulled both swords and spun around. Making sure not to look directly at them, the blades made contact with something. It looked like that was all it took to piss off the shadowy figures because they all came crashing in on me, I was catching more than glimpses of them now, as they swarmed they abandoned staying just out of sight, I wish they hadn't.

They were grotesquely disfigured creatures, like people only with twisted limbs, bodies and faces. Fury, anger, and hatred mixed with sorrow, anguish, and pain the only recognizable emotions present. For each one I cut down two more took its place, and when I did succeed they simply melted into the darkness making room for the others to advance. I was spinning around slashing and hacking, quickly abandoning any strategy other than to fight and survive.

Seconds ticked by into minutes which in turn became hours, I lost all track of time wondering just how long it would take to wake up. Soon there was nothing beyond the ends of my swords except for more enemies, only shadows of people that I occasionally recognized as people I may or may not have met at one time or another.

When their numbers finally began to thin out I gave a gleeful, almost hysterical, laugh. I could see the unending darkness again, I could see something other than the angry, tormented forms that fell to my blades. As exhausted as I was seeing the end of the mass of shadowy figures was enough to give me my second wind. I put a little more flourish into my swings, a bit more bounce into my step, and a lot more power behind my strikes. Until I saw the last two figures amid nearly recognizable faces. I could almost make out villagers and friends who had fought beside Talon and I in our early years fighting Salem.

People we had failed to save.

People who had died by his word or his very sword.

My parents numbered among the remaining dozen or so figures.

I nearly dropped my swords then and there when I started running again, but I held on. I tightened my grip until it was painful and then ran even faster. I wasn't running from the unknown anymore. I wouldn't, no _couldn't_ stand against them. I had watched each and every one of them die, had witnessed their deaths. Now that I was thinking about it many of the tormented faces I had just fought off were familiar too, probably the nameless people I had watched slaughtered on the battle fields over the years. It made me sick thinking that I had just killed them again, but what made it worse was that they were here like this in the first place.

They were gaining on me again and I just kept speeding up. I didn't care anymore if I ran out of steam, I just wanted out of this endless nightmare. I couldn't face my parents, not yet, not like this. I pushed myself to my limits and just kept going. There was nothing else that I could do so I went faster and ran harder. My lungs started to burn and my legs began to feel like jelly. Even though I hadn't put my swords back up I was not going to use them, not on my friends, not my parents. I was rapidly slowing down and they were gaining even faster. Gasping for air I turned to face the oncoming mob and raised my swords only to let them drop from my trembling hands.

I pulled out the Yellow emerald wondering if it could get me home again, before it was ripped from my grasp by a young soldier who had once saved my life only to lose his own days later.

The gem skittered to a stop just behind an old woman who used to bake sweets for us before her village was burned to the ground.

I dropped to my knees and reached for my swords only to be thrown by a backhand from another young man this time the leader of the first resistance, the one that we had originally joined and was later totally annihilated in a matter of minutes once they went head to head with Salem's main force.

I lay on the ground long enough to get a good kick from someone I couldn't see and another from the old woman. I tried to crawl away but didn't get far before another rain of blows from the others.

I don't know how long I lay there curled up in a ball hopping it would stop but when it finally did I was surprised to see two of the figures melting into the darkness with a lance sticking out of them. I looked around for the source when two more lances shot out and impaled three more of my aggressors. My eyes went wide as I identified the source.

"Are you seriously going to just lie down and take this? I can't believe you're the same girl that had the gall to stand up to me, and stop crying already it's just pathetic." I would have kicked anyone's ass had they told me I would be this happy to see Shadow, but right now I was glad it was him. I would have been too mortified to have been saved by anyone else.

"I'm not crying." I blushed as he made a disbelieving grunt. Alright I take that back, I would have preferred it be anyone _but_ him.

Another lance speared the twisted figure of a woman in an apron who had once made me a wonderful dress for spring only to be murdered by one of Salem's goons in a raid. I grimaced and dashed away from the incoming attack from my father as he swung his fist. If they had been armed I would have never survived this long, I would never have survived the initial onslaught of nameless men and women, but here and now I began to understand.

"What are you waiting for? I won't help you if you don't fight back."

"They aren't real are they." It was a statement not a question and even as I dodged another swing from my dead father I knew it wasn't entirely true.

"They are as real as you and I, at least here they are. I don't know how you ended up in this hell but you won't get out until they are all gone, or you die. Honestly it's your choice." I looked at him with wide eyes and then back to my parents, I couldn't kill them and I certainly didn't want to die. His ruby gaze never leaving me, not even when he finished off the others leaving only my parents between me and freedom. "This place is made up of our darkest places. The hardest things for us to let go of, and it turns it into the most horrible nightmare we can imagine."

I backed away from my parents some more, "But my parents were never like this, not even in my darkest nightmares!" desperation creeping into my voice, "There is no way I would have imagined something so horrid as this." Maybe it had simply lead up to this when I thought I recognized one of them? After all isn't that how nightmares like this usually get started?

"Doesn't matter, this place takes you deepest darkest fears and feelings and makes it real." He leaned against a decrepit old building that hadn't been there a second ago. "Face them, conquer them and you conquer this place." his arms were crossed and the look on his face was one of mild boredom.

"You want to run that by me again, because it sounded like you said this place is a dream and the only ways out are to kill my parents or die." If I was dreaming my imagination needed some work, and why Shadow? Why not someone nicer or more likely to help me? If it wasn't a dream why was he helping me? I dodged a few more blows as I thought about what he said.

My deepest fears, and the only way out was to face them. Well there was more than one way to face my fears. I didn't have to kill, I just had to let my fear go, let it fade into the darkness it was born from.

It didn't scare me as much anymore. I just had to trust myself and the potentially imaginary Shadow. I turned toward the shadows that resembled my parents. I took a deep breath and let myself relax. I opened my eyes as they struck one final time.

Shadows eyes went wide and he nearly tripped over his own feet when he lurched forward.

My heart nearly stopped when my parent's doppelgangers dissipated around me in a cloud of darkness that faded into the emptiness around me.

The nightmare world had felt overwhelmingly filled with darkness when I had arrived, now it was just empty darkness as much sense as that made. I smiled weakly at Shadow before disappearing into the darkness like my parents had done, leaving him with an astonished expression on his face.

When I woke I lifted my arm and gazed at the gold ring around my wrist, it wasn't a dream, he had the same rings on when I had first met him and he had them on in that world of nightmares. I couldn't explain why that made me happy, or why he infuriated me so easily. Perhaps it was because he was one of the first people I had met since my youth and I didn't think he would end up another face in the nightmare.

**That's it for chapter seven! Hope you enjoyed it.**


	8. Mischief

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch8. Mischief**

Two days. Two whole days and the only things on my mind are Rune and Shadow, the emerald business seemed like my whole world two days ago but now? I thought I would be devastated at the loss of the emerald or have to beg to keep it, but no, Maxis just gave it back like it was no big deal and even brought another person into our lives, not that I am complaining or anything but come on seriously?

Concerning Rune, Fel is happy to have someone else to talk to and Talon will _not_ stop staring at her every time he isn't trying to impress her with his gentleman's attitude. I think he brought her flowers this morning after going out the night before to find them, and about twenty minutes ago he said something about cleaning his room... This woman was throwing the balance of nature out of whack, I mean my brother cleaning his room? Unthinkable... He _really_ likes her. I guess that just makes it easier to mess with him later.

On the other hand I dreamed of the nightmare world again, only this time my parents didn't turn into twisted rampaging monsters like the first time, no this time after defeating the other poor twisted souls I watched them die at Salem's hands without being able to do anything to stop him. Shadow had showed up again just in time to watch my pathetic display at a failed attempt to stop Salem from killing them. I was so ashamed that I had showed such weakness, I hadn't bothered to ask any questions. I just waited for the nightmare world to disappear again. Lucky for me it disappeared almost immediately after and I didn't have to speak with Shadow.

I had spent my day honing my swords and checking the rest of my gear. I needed to tighten the main strap on one of the swords but other than that my gear was in top shape.

Now I was board out of my mind and the day was only half over, question was would I do something productive with the rest of the day or would I cause some mischief?

Stupid question, Mischief it was.

I snuck up the stairs, making sure not to make a sound, and down the hall past my room and hid behind Talons open door. I pulled my emerald out and peered around the corner to see what he was up to and how I could make things difficult for him.

He was almost finished cleaning his room, I grinned. This was going to get interesting, I knew that I shouldn't but I just couldn't help myself. I focused on the pile of trophies on his bed that he had yet to put back on the shelf and gave a mental push. The pile wavered some but didn't tumble like I had intended. Frowning with the effort I gave a good mental shove, they leaned farther this time and then slowly toppled. Talon had been caught off guard, with a yelp of surprise he was buried in his own collection.

I was holding in a laugh and decided to take it a step further. As he was extracting himself from the pile I noticed the plate of food sitting on the bedside table, we all knew that we weren't supposed to have food upstairs. No point in wasting a perfectly good opportunity. I gave another mental shove almost equal to the one I had used on the pile, I would only have one shot on this one so no point in making the same mistake twice. The cake flew across the room making its target in record time with a satisfying splat.

I couldn't stop the laughter from bursting out, the look on my brother's face with cake sitting on his head was priceless. I was rolling on the floor I was laughing so hard, I couldn't get enough air to stand let alone run like I probably should have done.

I looked up just in time to roll to the side and stash the emerald. "Shit!" and somehow managed to dash out of the way as Talon chased me down the stairs and around the temple before passing Rune and Fel in a heated debate about what to make for supper tonight, they both had a passion for cooking but neither could ever agree on one thing. We were all glad that she was feeling better and getting used to living here.

I got that mischievous grin again as I stopped and reversed direction forcing Talon to avoid crashing headlong into them. I vanished from the room as he remembered that he still had cake on his head.

I made my way outside and down the mountain heading straight for my secret spot on one of the other peaks overlooking the edge of our territory, the edge of our haven.

Almost an hour later I was there, the one place I could look out over the realm of the tyrant and know that he was somewhere out there waiting for us to make one wrong move. Waiting for us to venture out into his domain like I waited for monsters within my own. This was my domain and that was his, it was so simple, so close.

Something felt off... My instincts had been honed beyond normal limits in this primal wilderness, and something was wrong.

Something glinted on the horizon, then another, and then another. "Oh Crap..." I dropped down to a lower point on the mountain to get a closer look. The glints on the horizon were increasing in number and quickly. The sun still had about an hour before it began to set but it was low enough to make it difficult to see the exact number and nature of the glints.

The sun passed behind a cloud for a few seconds and I almost stopped breathing as I froze, the glints were thousands of soldiers. Thousands of Salem's solders heading straight for the temple.

I was ready to scream and run or rush in ad try to tear them to shreds all at the same time, but I knew better than that. I had to keep a cool head and think. I had been wrong, he wasn't waiting for us, not anymore. They were still far enough away and it was late enough in the day that they wouldn't be able to reach the temple for at least another day or two, so I had time, and there were enough of them that rushing in to wipe them out was not an option, on the other hand I could lay a few traps for them on my way back to warn the others.

"Holy shit. Salem's getting serious." I nearly jumped out of my quills as Talon spoke up.

"Where the Hell!" He had followed me up without my noticing, how he had done so was beyond me. "Never mind, we need to warn the others." I walked up to the peak again and leaned over the edge preparing to book it all the way back when Talon interrupted me again.

"How much damage do you think we can do on our way back?" I found myself smiling a lot lately, especially when Talon read my mind. Traps, lots of dangerous traps.

**And that's it for chapter eight, I know this one was a bit short but the next ones will be longer. Hope you enjoyed it.**


	9. True Nightmares

**Trying a new format to my writing hope it works out a bit better than before. Will be redoing the previous chapters in same format and fixing spelling and grammar, however the story will remain the same. **

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch9. True nightmares**

We took almost four hours to get back, Traps were more fun to set when there was competition. We had set more traps than we could count in those four hours, pit falls, rock slides, spike traps, ect...ect...ect... getting back was the fun part, actually being back and having to give the news to everyone was a different story all together.

Fel was the first one to greet us when we ran in the front doors, and the first to hear the news of the impending invasion. Maxis next, and then Rune. Darkness had once again settled into our lives. This would be our last night at the temple and we would be spending it collecting the things we could take with us instead of sleeping.

Maxis looked back at the temple longingly in the darkness, I couldn't blame him, we all felt the deep loss of this place after all it had been our home for so long. Even Rune seemed sad at our departure. It had almost hurt to leave, this place was home, and we didn't stand a chance defending it against that many soldiers. Halfway down the mountain we heard the first screams off in the distance. I couldn't be sure if they were from the traps or just the local 'residents' but I was certain they were from scouts, otherwise they wouldn't be spaced out so much.

I almost hated myself for wanting their deaths, after all most of them probably joined Salem's' army to survive the tyrant. On the other hand, if we wanted to survive in order to save more people from the same fate then we had to do what we had to do. Maybe someday we would be strong enough to do differently.

Those screams would haunt me for the rest of the night and probably the rest of my journey.

That night I dreamed of darkness, overwhelming darkness. No phantom enemies this time, no Salem, no parents, not even close. No this time I was surrounded by the darkness I felt and the screams of the people I might or might not be responsible for killing. A golem, a monster, or a bot was one thing, but living people were another matter altogether.

I tried to run from it, but the air around me only grew darker and the screams louder. I ran faster and faster, shutting my eyes and covering my ears like a child. Hopping it would go away if I blocked it out.

Eventually I tripped over my own two feet I could feel tears streaming down my face, when had I started crying? Instead of getting up and trying again I just curled up into a ball and began sobbing.

I don't know how long I was lying there, or what was happening to the nightmare world around me until someone sat down next to me. I didn't know if I wanted to look or not, or if I cared at this point. Let me die in this world of nightmares. If it would make the darkness and the death go away then so be it.

Eventually I looked up. I didn't have the motivation to wipe the tears from my face, so when I glanced over to see Shadow I didn't so much as blink.

"Well this is a new one, never seen a nightmare world like this before." He wouldn't look at me. I didn't blame him, I was a mess and I knew it.

I finally bothered to wipe what was left of the tears from my face and sit up instead of just lying there pathetically.

He finally bothered to look at me.

"So you finally pulled yourself together enough to move. Good. Then we can get to discussing business."

"_Business_? What do you mean business?" he sighed and stood up.

"Knuckles told the others about you and the emerald, and your, predicament. So Faker and his friends are trying to find a way to help you. To do that we need as much info as possible, that's where I come in. Since I am the only one capable of talking with you it is my job to get as much useful info as I can before we find our way to your world."

I sat there in stunned silence. Silence being the key word, when had the screams stopped? No wait, I don't care, they were coming for us, we might just pull this off…

Shadow was getting annoyed by the waiting, they were only in this place for so long, "Well, are you going to say something? Or am I going to assume you have no useful info?"

"Oh. Right. Um, let's see. Since you don't know anything about this world I should tell you it's not like yours, its smaller and more dangerous…" he snorts at that last part but stays otherwise silent. "Anyways, there are four of us, wait, five now? Five of us standing against Salem, and we are currently evading his main force marching into our territory." I wasn't about to tell him we were running for our lives, I was at a low point with my dignity but not that low. "We have traps set all over and the native creatures are some of the fiercest in the world. Most of them don't stand a chance…" I swallowed, pushing down the rising guilt and bile. There was no way I was losing it in front of him again. "We don't know if he is with his forces or not but chances are that he sent one of his generals in his stead."

Surprisingly he nods, then thoughtfully, "Find out, if he is your probably screwed, otherwise you might stand a fighting chance. Tell me about his generals. How many are there, how strong are they, what are their weaknesses, strong points?" the first specific question I had gotten out of him today, er tonight.

"There are seven generals, I don't know much about them but my brothers Talon and Fel do."

"It's a start. How about his army. How many men does he have and how loyal are they."

"About ten thousand or so, they would follow him to hell and back if it meant keeping on his good side. Most of them used to be soldiers from other kingdoms who defected when he stared taking control of the world with little to no resistance. It isn't that no one went against him, just that every time someone did they were wiped out, mercilessly. They are more like slaves than soldiers, and his generals are the only ones he truly trusts to any degree." The nightmare was fading bit by bit, getting lighter and brighter.

"We can use that against him, if he rules with fear then taking down even one of his generals will be a major blow to his pride and even more so to his troops morale."

"Won't it just make him mad? And besides he still has the other six generals if we do, he'll just send the others after us, and then we would be dead. Kind of counterproductive don't you think?" I gave him my best doubtful look even though what he said made a lot of sense.

"No, chances are that he will send them one or two at a time to keep his image intact and in hopes of wearing us down, and if you can take down one of them then the others shouldn't pose to much of a threat if you take them on one at a time."

I couldn't argue with his logic even though I wanted to for some reason. I stood up next to him, looking out at the grey and black expanse before us. I had never seen the nightmare world do anything like this before and judging by the look on Shadows face neither had he. That or he was really focused on the Intel he had gained.

The world began to fade around me, and probably him as well, "Well looks like goodbye for tonight Shadow." With a quick nod for an answer he vanished with the nightmare. Was it even a nightmare anymore? Most likely. This world just kept getting stranger and stranger.

I awoke in a familiar cavern, almost expecting a giant snake to try and eat me as I awoke. I had somehow gotten a good night's sleep, relatively speaking. And so it seemed had the others. Talon and Fel were used to this kind of thing from their travels, Maxis was used to living like this during his youth if his mealtime stories were anything to go by, and who knows what kind of life Rune had lived before. In all we were doing fairly well this time around.

"Talon, we need to go back." Talon rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"Go back where? What time is it?" he looked around the cavern at the waking forms of the others as he stretched to drive away the remaining grogginess.

"You and I need to go back to the temple." I was trying to make it as simple as possible and take as few people with me so as not to draw unwanted attention.

"What? Why? Have you lost your mind? If we go back there now we don't stand a chance against that army!" He was wide awake now that my words had sunk in a bit.

"Not to fight them idiot! To gage their strength. We need to know who is leading them and such. We need to know what we are up against. I do Not intend to fight if it can be helped." I hadn't intended to bite his head off, just get the point across, but it seemed to work out anyway, the look on his face was priceless even if I didn't have time to laugh.

"Oh. Well you might have a point there. Do you at least have you emerald in case we need to teleport?"

"Stupid question." I held the yellow gem up to the light from the entry and watched it shine.

"Yeah guess it was." He chuckled.

"This is going to be fun."

"Something like that." He grinned from ear to ear. We were going all out again weren't we? I had to smile at that to, we hadn't had this much fun in a long time. It was time to mess with Salem and his undefeatable army. I grabbed my bag and strapped my blades on to my back, Talon did the same with his monstrous sword and we set out for the temple.

Two hours, that's how long it took us to infiltrate the now overrun temple, and that's how long it took us to realize just how much of a toll this place had taken on his army with some help from our booby-traps. They had gone from ten thousand to a couple hundred overnight. I was honestly surprised to see such an enormous force reduced to this in such a short amount of time. Especially since two kids, an old man and a robot had managed it for the past few years without a single casualty. How much stronger had we gotten over the past few years? Maybe we stood a chance after all…

I almost felt guilt again seeing the pathetic state most of the remaining soldiers were in, that is until I saw that three men seemed completely untouched and unfazed by the whole incident. Fear ran a cold finger down my spine at the sight of them and I ducked behind the rampart I was watching from when the largest of the three glanced in my direction. I shivered and made my way back to Talon on the other side of the temple observing the other remaining troops from the seemingly unstoppable army before they had traipsed through the domain of the beasts.

We had seen the remains of the monsters that had stood between the army and our former home, our hopes hadn't been high before, but now we knew the damage done to both sides, as well as the lack there of. With no way to gage the strength of the uninjured enemies we silently agreed to not stick around long enough for the three that were obviously in charge to find us. We left as quietly as we had come.

At the very least It would take them another night to catch up to us and by then there would likely be no one left other than the three in charge. With Maxis and Fel, we stood a good chance of surviving three enemies with little chance for fatalities. I was just glad that Salem hadn't decided to lead the charge.

The others were exactly where we had left them, they had decided to wait instead of going on ahead and letting us catch up later. We were the fastest of the group and had insisted that they go ahead but it actually worked out better this way. Now that we had everyone together we could lay out a battle plan.

"So how do you propose we go up against three of Salem's finest?" Rune was not happy about our plan, no one was but she showed the most opposition.

"Simple, we isolate them and beat them with superior numbers. We beat them at their own game." Fel had settled into the role of tactician once he realized the severity of the situation.

"And what if most of the soldiers that made it last night survive the second night in hell? What then?" I swear Rune was trying to be a pessimist now.

"Then you get to figure out what to do with them. The four of us get to target the three in charge, and you get the left overs if there are any." Fel was quickly getting fed up with her negativity. "Chances are that they won't bring their injured with, it would just slow them down if they did and even then an injured person wouldn't stand a chance against the night life here, not long anyway." Fel was more helpful in a dire situation than at any other time, and at the moment that was fine by me.

Rune gave a loud huff of disapproval but made no other argument.

"So what do we do if they are stronger than we bargained for?" Talon was the one who spoke up this time.

"Then we regroup and I teleport us halfway to the rebel states." I had to point out the obvious every once in a while, especially when the pressure was on.

"Simple enough, no other depressing questions? Dark thoughts? Oppressive views? No? Good, then let's get to kicking minion but and embarrassing the overlord of doom." and cold calculating Fel has left the building.

Maxis had been strangely quiet about the whole thing, but then again he had lost the only home he had known for probably the last thirty years over night and this battle would probably be meaningless when it came to getting it back. Either way Salem would probably know where to find us now and if we wanted to stand a chance against him and his generals, it would be with the rebel states as small as they were now.

We slept in the same cave that night. I dreamed of the same place as well.

"So this is what this place is like when I'm not running like an idiot." It was still dark and empty with shadows lurking at the edges of my vision, but it was strangely calm tonight.

"As unusual as it is yes, almost pleasant if you think about it." I nearly jumped out of my quills when he spoke, he had appeared behind me without my noticing and I wasn't sure if I was mad or relived for the intrusion.

"For the love of… Please don't do that." I held one hand over my chest trying to get my heart to stop pounding like a drum.

"Whatever, what new intel do you have." It was not a question. Straight to the point then.

"Well we won't have to deal with an army anymore, the monsters in the forest dealt with the majority of it for us. There are only a couple hundred left and I don't think most of them will make it through their second night." He raised an eyebrow at that one.

"What the _hell_ kind of forest creatures live in your world that they could take out an army of _ten thousand _of soldiers overnight?" he let his composure slip, shock and horror showing clear on his face. I would have smiled if I hadn't thought of the three people that had made it through their first night in such a place without a scratch.

"The kind that grow to the size of large buildings and eat one another for sport. More good news, Salem decided not to show up to the party." He had regained most of his composure again and nodded for me to continue, worry or doubt still showing in his eyes. "Unfortunately that's where the good news ends. Three of the people he sent made it through the first night completely unscathed and I don't think it was luck. I'm almost certain at least one of them is a general." Shadow crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and thought for a moment.

"You're right about it not being particularly good news but this could still be to your advantage."

"We thought about that too, we figure that since we manage to do the same on a regular basis the five of us, er, four of us might stand a decent chance against three of them."

"Four or five?"

"Yes well, Rune isn't trained as well as the rest of us yet and we were thinking that if any of the other soldiers made it to us then she could take care of them, if not then, well, four."

He sighed, "Better than nothing I guess, so you fight these kinds of things on a daily basis? That would certainly explain a few things."

"Nightly but yes, and what does it explain?" I had no idea what kind of puzzle he was putting together in his head but I was obviously missing a few pieces.

"Your fighting abilities, from the first time we met. Most people can't put up a good fight other than Faker and his friends."

"Who the heck is Faker?"

"Sonic."

"Why do you call him Faker?"

"Can we get back to a relevant topic?" Irritation began creeping into his features replacing the worry and doubt that had been there.

"Right, anyway. So we know who we will be fighting and how we are going to do it."

"Do you have a backup plan?"

"Yep, an escape plan."

"Well?"

"We regroup and teleport."

"Simple."

"If you have a problem with it say so."

"Who said I had a problem with it, all I said was that it was simple."

I wasn't sure if that was an insult or an explanation but I was sure I didn't appreciate his tone.

"What do you plan to do after you win or escape?" I was sure he put a slight disapproving emphasis on the word escape but I ignored it.

"We head for the rebel states, they are the last stronghold against Salem's forces and the only place we can get away from him. I know that we won't be able to hide from him there and we don't intend to. If and when we make it there we are going to hit him and his forces hard and often, we will wear them down while gaining strength and experience while helping the rebel states take back territory from him. If all goes well then we will be well on our way to eliminating his generals and obtaining the fragment emeralds."

He mulled over this info for a while and began to pace around the strangely empty world. It hadn't gotten brighter or anything but it was less intimidating and oppressive than before. I think it had more to do with our attitudes and such than with our nightmares.

"When you get the emeralds from him, what do you plan to do?"

I was silent, I already knew what we were going to do with them, but did I want to tell Shadow. Hesitantly I chose my words carefully. "Well we, my brothers and I, are going to try to go to your world, we were originally going to try and find someone to help us find the original emeralds and defeat Salem with them." I was still not sure about telling him about our plan to recombine the worlds.

"Sounds like you had at least that much planned out for quite some time."

"Four years."

He raised an eyebrow again, it was beginning to get repetitive, he hadn't been expecting an answer to that one. I hadn't been expecting to answer. "How long have you been running from this guy?"

I took a little longer answering this time, it wasn't just that I didn't want to sound desperate, I didn't want to break out in tears again. "My earliest memories are of my family less than a year before he killed my parents… So about ten or eleven years, something like that."

We sat in silence for a while longer, not looking at one another. He broke the silence. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

As surprising as his statement was mine shocked me just as much. "It isn't your fault, don't apologize." It came off a little curt but not quite hostel or anything. I sighed, "Wow we got so far off topic. There is something else you need to know." I would wait to tell him the rest of the plan but there were a few things he needed to know about the fragment world. "Our word, my world, is way different than yours."

"That was made obvious by the apparent large number of man eating monsters that seem to populate the wild places you have told me about." The obnoxious tone was back and I was kind of glad, it meant that we were done with the awkward sharing time.

I scoffed at his comment, "No that's just this in this area. Most of the dangers are from elemental hazards. The desert between here and the rebel territories is the biggest problem, and the only reason Salem hasn't taken them over yet. The other is the ocean, it takes up over two thirds of the planet and with only two continents and a few islands there is nowhere to run to if, sorry when Salem turns his focus on us. Also the winters in the desert and the territories are notorious for claiming countless lives. So between the large amounts of water or lack thereof, and the extreme temperature differences I just thought it would be a good idea to forewarn you."

"You think your world's weather is going to be more of a problem than giant man eating monsters that I now know primarily only live in one place? I hope you know our world has its fair share of bad weather, and this isn't the first time we have been to other worlds each with their own hazards. This one will be no different." I had to admit that had both surprised and impressed me, and that annoyed me. I was trying to be helpful and tell him what to expect and he just shrugged it off like it was going to be nothing out of the ordinary.

The dream world began to fade again like it did every night before we woke. I was content to stay silent after his last remarks. Apparently he wasn't.

"Thank you Whisper, and good luck." Then he disappeared and I followed, shocked.


	10. Armored Glass

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch10. Armored Glass**

I sat up, looking at the sky as the sun began to dip below the clouds out the mouth of the cave. It set the sky afire with hues of red and orange almost as if the mountains were burning with rage and anticipation. I shivered at the thought. Turning my mind to better places I thought back to the dream, I had never heard shadow say so much before, not even when he was questioning me, and I didn't think I would again for a while. He didn't seem like the share your feelings kind of guy.

I shrugged the questions off _stop that_. _There was no reason for me to be thinking like that, sometimes people just had more to say than usual._ As I stood up I took inventory of my things. Swords, check. Emerald, check. I knelt down and inspected the contents of my bag. I had hastily thrown together some things to take with when we left the temple. Medical supplies and a couple of tools. I dug through again to make sure I had the basics when something glittered in the bottom of the bag. I pulled it out and found the purple glass shard. Dumping the contents out, I found the rest of them and smiled. _How long had I forgotten these_? It looked like I had gotten to take at least one memory with me after all.

Quickly grabbing my tools and a few chunks of metal from deeper in the cave I went out and lit the hottest fire I could manage in an hour. Thankfully it was hot enough, I melted down the purest chunk of metal and skimmed off as many of the impurities as I could. Letting it cool down a bit I worked it into a thick wire, making sure it was the same along the entire length.

Rune had silently taken a seat on a fallen tree not far from me to watch, and that was fine by me as long as it stayed that way.

I looked over my work, correcting a couple spots where if had ended up slightly thicker or had twisted slightly. My control over the emeralds chaos power had grown in the 48 hours I had to practice. I couldn't use it like Shadow had but then again I wasn't him. Melting the remaining metal I wiped the sweat from my eyes before moving on to the next part. Taking a deep breath I began shaping the thick wire, twisting and bending, cutting and fusing. My masterpiece began to take shape. I began setting the glass shards as the metal was finally cool enough to touch with my hands. Taking the half-finished project and setting it aside to finish cooling I went back to the molten slurry and carefully skimmed the impurities off the top. This batch was larger than the last one, almost five times larger and twice the concentration of impurities.

By now I had an audience of four, everyone had quietly made their way out to watch. I sighed and wiped my face again.

Fel motioned to Talon, then to quietly, "I think she finally lost it. What do you suppose she's making?"

"Not sure, has to be important though if she's making it now."

"Hope so. We're a couple hours from toast and she's playing blacksmith."

"Would you shut it? I want to watch not listen to you two debate the finer points of boredom." We all looked at Rune like she had grown a second head. We hadn't known her long but up till now she had been quiet and reserved for the most part. I got over the shock first and smiled, Maxis chuckled and the boys just looked at one another before going back to watching quietly.

I took one last look at the molten metal free from imperfections and took a deep breath, this was going to be the hardest thing I had ever done by far. I focused my power over the metal, willing it to be lighter, stronger, less resistant to the wind but more resistant to everything else like my swords. I molded it with the emeralds power and my own, not giving it a chance to cool or solidify. I forced my will into it, concentrating on my work more than the world around me, I had no idea how long it took me and I didn't care, I had to do this.

The molten mass lifted out of the small vat and instantly began shifting and changing, the color deepened to a dark purple and the edges smoothed out into the shape of a light, flexible chest plate. As the shape began to settle a lighter purple swirled its way onto the edge of the piece. The interlocking plates shifted again as they cooled.

I dropped to my knees as I let my concentration go and my masterpiece clattered to the ground beside me. I took a moment before picking it up and walking back over to where the first piece was. I began working on it as soon as I picked it up. It fit perfectly to the shoulder, glass shards reflecting the last rays of sunlight as it finally set below the peaks.

Talon whistled. "Nice."

Fel tilted his head. "Why?"

Rune hit Fel upside the head. "Are you thick in the head? It's armor! Damned good armor at that."

"And?" he shrugged his shoulders.

Talon's turn to hit him upside the head. "We are about to go into possibly the hardest fight we have ever been in and you ask why my sister made herself some kick ass armor? I thought you were supposed to be the genius best friend."

"I get that, why now? She could have made it before we got invaded, or waited till after and used had more time and better materials."

"How was she supposed to know that we were going to get invaded?" Rune put her hands on her hips and Talon nodded enthusiastically, I wasn't sure if he was siding with me or her now, same side I guess.

I had to butt in on this one before it got out of hand. "I won't find better materials for an armor like this. I needed metal for the resistance and it had to be light weight if I didn't want it to slow me down. Also I figured it would be better safe than sorry against unknown skills." I pulled the armor on over my vest and adjusted, it fit perfectly. The purple glass glinted in the fading firelight and I grinned. I couldn't help but feel like it was congratulating me.

"Oh. Makes sense I guess." Fel nodded and Rune face palmed. Talon tackled him yelling something about him sounding like an idiot.

Maxis went around the brawling boys and walked up to me. "Congratulations Whisper. I believe that your crafting skills have nearly surpassed my own. I don't think I have anything more to teach you."

I blushed and rubbed the back of my neck. "Thank you Maxis."

"Aw how touching. A student graduating from her mentors watchful eye." They were here, and I wasn't surprised. At their level they wouldn't need grunts to make it this far, they probably just wanted to test their strength.

The first one, the one who spoke, was a tall thorny lizard. He was almost twice Maxis' height and he was the tallest one of us.

The second was a pale kangaroo, wearing goggles on his head and a brown vest.

The last was a dog, brown spots on white fur contrasted with his bright yellow pants and the great sword slung across his back.

I wasn't sure if I should have laughed at the trio or taken them seriously. I opted for the later seen as how they made it here without a scratch. "Ah, look, the uninvited guests have arrived." Maxis was the first to react.

"Sorry to just drop in like this but you weren't exactly going to visit us anytime soon. We couldn't help but get a bit impatient." The thorny lizard spoke again, this time stepping forward to meet Maxis head on. Fel stepped up next to him.

"Enough with the small talk Regis, let's get this over with." The kangaroo chided his companion, not taking his eyes off of me for a second.

"I agree with Fleet, let's get started already." The dog pulled the sword over his shoulder. We could tell he was waiting for someone to give the word, to make a move. Rune and Talon edged closer, Talon keeping himself between the two.

"Shut it Booker! We both know you can't wait to kill something, just remember who's in charge!" The one named Regis was about to say more when he was interrupted by Fels' fist making contact with his face. He took a step back and rubbed his face. "Now you've gone and ruined my good mood little kitty cat." I had enough time to see him backhand Fel across the small field before I became occupied with my own opponent.

I heard him swear under his breath, as I was pushed back closer to him. "I put everything I had into that punch, what the hell is this guy made of?"

I was to busy dodging kicks to answer. Fleet was fast, I mean really fast. For every kick I dodged there was another one was waiting for me. Quickly getting away from the other fights to avoid getting caught between blows I realized something, Fleet was only fast in close combat. _He may be able to keep up with me when I get close but there was no way he was faster than me when I got going._

One step and I was charging away from him, two steps and I was rushing up to the cliff, three and I was jumping up it. I climbed higher and higher, finally when gravity caught up with me I smiled and turned back down the cliff. "Let's see your kicks save you from this." I dropped like a stone before my feet made contact with the stone again, propelling myself forward into a sonic boom I hit him at full speed. He flew back into Regis, throwing him to the ground as well.

"How the hell did you manage that?!" Fel was just getting up from another blow, but thankfully not injured.

"Guess I just hit harder than you."

"Yeah right. I will _not_ get out done by a girl. Especially not little Whisper."

"Little? Last I checked we were about the same height. I might even be an inch taller than you now." Silence, "Are you ignoring me?"

Fel launched himself forward and landed another punch on the lizard and sent him tumbling back again after he had just gotten back up. "Sorry, couldn't hear you over how awesome I am." I rolled my eyes and turned back to my own fight.

Fleet was back up, and I felt a chill as I realized that he was completely fine, they were letting us beat on them. This was going to royally suck. Even though he hadn't landed a single hit on me I knew that mine had been ineffective to the point where he was just dusting his clothes off from rolling around in the dirt. He thought he was going to toy with me, well I guess he was in for a surprise then. I backed up to the cliff again, but this time I let him corner me. "Shame you chose to oppose us, in a few years you might have become a fine soldier. You didn't think something so pathetically weak could stop us did you? Any last words?"

I reached behind me and touched the emerald. "Chaos Control." His eyes went wide as I disappeared from his view. I raced down the mountain, gaining momentum. I knew it wouldn't be enough. I grabbed my swords, ready to draw any moment. Breaking the sound barrier for the second time in the last five minutes I charge forward, ready to catch him off guard. Seconds from the end of the cliff I jump at him, and he jumps at me. If I wasn't in midair I would have stopped, unfortunately I didn't have that option. A blow to my side sent me crashing to the ground, and if I hadn't had the armor I would have several broken ribs, as it was I was having trouble catching my breath. Had he hit me anywhere else I might not have been so lucky. This guy could kick. I made another mistake when I glanced over to see how everyone else was doing. I got another kick to the side and hit the cliff.

I saw just enough to know the others were having just as much trouble as me. _Well so much for holding back. At least they didn't bring back up. Not like they need it._ I stood back up and touched the emerald again. "Chaos control." He looked up immediately, _good, just keep being predictable._ I was a good ways behind him, "Silver sleeve." Instant sonic boom. He looked back just in time to see my knee make contact with his face.

I hadn't intended to use my knee, I had planned on actually getting to use my swords, but I was too fast to use my draw with the silver sleeve. I dropped my swords into my hands and readied a counter attack as he staggered up instead of attacking. _No way had I done that much damage._ Fleet wiped his arm across his heavily bleeding nose. He chuckled. "Not bad kid, what did you say your name was?"

I rushed him again, "I didn't." we spent the next few minutes dodging each other's attacks, I was faster.

"I have to hand it to you kid, you're good. You sure you don't want to reconsider joining our side?" we were both panting from exhaustion coupled with our injuries. He was worse off than I was, I had weapons and armor, he didn't. If he would have had either this would have ended differently.

"Never." He didn't seem like such a bad guy, not like the other two. Not like someone who would have joined Salem willingly. I gave one last push to finish the fight and Fleet ended up on his knees. "Here's a question for you. Why are you with Salem?" I was expecting a lot of things… laughter wasn't one of them.

"You don't seem to get it. He's unstoppable. There's nothing anyone can do to stop him and no point in cutting my life short by opposing him. Besides, the way I see it, his empire is big enough that he can't keep track of everything that goes on inside it. All I have to do is make a name for myself, retire, and live the good life protecting the things that matter. You should to if you know what's good for you."

"You're wrong, he isn't unstoppable, we're going to stop him, and there isn't anyone who can stop us." he laughed again.

"You really think you can stop him? Your either stronger than you let on or crazier, either way I chose my path a long time ago. I'm afraid that there isn't any way out for me. If you plan on getting out of this alive you might want to help your friends, they're going to need it." just then a rampaging Booker swung his sword at us. I jumped back to avoid it, Fleet didn't. I watched in horror as he smiled sadly as he dropped to the ground, bleeding from a wound I couldn't take my eyes from.

Fear, anger, sadness, rage. I wasn't sure why I stood there or why I felt so much for someone who had just tried to kill me. What confused me the most was why booker had killed his own team mate even though he had his own fight to deal with. My heart nearly stopped as I spun around thinking that he may have finished Talon and Rune as well. I was relieved to see them both alive even if they were badly beat up. We weren't down for the count yet. I dodged another swing, he didn't miss a beat when he turned his swing into a crushing downward blow. _When did he get so good? Oh don't tell me…. He's a berserker…_ I dodged another barrage of blows and got a good look at his eyes. "Why can't anything ever be easy!"

"Look out!" Fel came running through with an angry Regis hot on his heels. That is until he noticed that Booker was berserk.

"Uh oh." He looked at Fleets unmoving body and made a run for it. "Nice meeting you folk but I think it's about time I beat a hasty retreat."

And with that we were left with a berserk, great sword wielding, mad dog to deal with.


	11. Fragile Alliegiance

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch.11 Fragile Allegiance**

I watched, wholly confused as Regis made a break for it and left Booker to face us alone. Big mistake, I was slammed sideways with the blunt side of Bookers great sword and only landed again after crashing through a tree. Dazed and no longer confused I tried, unsuccessfully to stand up immediately after landing only to find that it was incredibly hard to stand up when the world was spinning faster and in more directions than it was supposed to. From the sounds coming from the direction of the battle I wasn't the only one having trouble standing.

"Now would be a good time to use your weapons Gramps!" I managed to stand up in time to see Fel scramble toward me to avoid taking a hit like I had. "Whisper! Good to see you're alive, now move!" I was about to protest when the berserker came barreling up behind him. _Nope!_

"Don't lead him this way you idiot! Are you trying to get me killed?" We both ran, dodging blows and trees as we tried to circle back around to the clearing where the others were.

Something crashed behind us, we didn't dare look back but when Regis ran past us we nearly stopped to look at one another. Then Bookers sword landing between us reminded us why we were running in the first place.

I glanced back long enough to see something even I had never seen before. A stampede of monsters were crashing through the forest behind the oblivious Berserk Booker and heading straight towards the clearing.

"The hell is that!" Fel was apparently as curious as I had been.

We broke out of the cover of the forest at a dead run and didn't stop to explain to the others as they gave the three of us befuddled looks.

"Stampede!" forget Booker, if that stampede made it to us we were toast.

Booker made it out before the rampaging monsters did. The old fox had readied his weapon after Fel led him into the forest and was now leveling the bazooka at him. With a resounding BOOM the forest went silent. Every inhabitant in these mountains knew that sound.

The Stampede had stopped in its tracks and we could see the largest of the monsters above the trees, hesitating, trying to decide their next move. I however knew mine, I turned on Regis and punched him, hard. He had been the reason we were in this mess in the first place, he had led the army to our doorstep, he had injured my brother and Rune, he had started the stampede and left both of his comrades to die. "_Gaaah_! I give, I give!" I wanted to hit him again but Fel stopped me.

"Whisper don't." I thought about Fleet and how he had died by the sword of one of his own, how Regis had decided to abandon him instead of helping. It took everything I had not to let him get to me, not to lower myself to his level.

"Yes, yes listen to your cat friend! I'm not a threat anymore. Those monsters were going to kill me, please just let me go!" His pleading was making me sick.

"You're a coward you know that? Nothing but a bully with a bad attitude and nothing to back it up. I can't believe you gave us such a hard time, you couldn't even get away from a bunch of monsters. How the hell did you make it this far in the first place?" Talon and his way with words, it was true though now that I looked at him, he was in much worse shape than when he had run away and there was no way he was that injured from one punch.

"You let your men take the fall for you. This whole time we've been worrying that you made it through the forest on our own and that you might have been one of Salem generals. You're just a lowly soldier put in charge of the others because you can throw your weight around aren't you?" I was ready to throttle him good. If he hadn't been so pathetic and injured on top of it I would have. "Fleet was stronger than you." I made it a point to make that last sentence as harsh as possible.

"That..that's… You thought we might have been generals?"

"We ask the questions. You answer." Maxis looked like he was ready to throttle him as well if he didn't get the answers he wanted. My mouth twitched up at the thought of pulling Maxis off of him.

"Y..yes sir." He swallowed hard, "I was put in charge of the others, we were ordered to infiltrate the ruins in this area and track down the inhabitants. Fleet outranked me but he was demoted for disobeying orders, serving under me was supposed to be his punishment."

"And Booker?" Maxis was milking this for all it was worth. It wasn't often that you found one of Salem's soldiers willing to give out info so freely.

"He was suppos' to be a fail safe, a last resort. If we couldn't beat you right away we were suppos' to retreat and let him go all berserker and kill you on his own."

"Yeah, that worked _so_ well." Fel crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. How had this guy gotten the better of Talon? Oh right, Rune.

I looked over to find her when I heard a loud thud and felt a breeze behind me. Booker…

I spun around in time to watch Fel drop him with his cannon and nearly lost what little I had eaten when I saw what was left of Regis. He had been crushed beneath Bookers sword, and from the looks of it died instantly. I turned away from the grisly scene. I wondered how many people had died because of this stupid fight, this stupid mission of theirs. We would give them all a burial, even if they didn't all deserve it. We just couldn't stomach the thought of letting the monsters get to them.

Rune had the worst injuries besides Talon, who had protected her, nothing too major. Some bruises and broken ribs, they had gotten off lucky considering what happened to Regis… it could have been me or talon getting scrapped off the forest floor, suddenly I didn't feel so good.

We buried what was left of Booker first, then Regis. It was as fast and to the point as we could manage with the circumstances. Rune had been standing over Fleet the whole time after getting patched up by Fel. "Guys… I think he might still be alive… what do we do?"

"Help him! Stop the bleeding! Do something Rune!" I ran over to Fleet nearly running her down in the process.

Maxis pulled medical supplies I didn't known he had out of his pack and told everyone but Rune to take two steps back.

Talon, Fel and I occupied ourselves with filling in the third grave we had dug while the other two kept Fleet alive. We knew that we may very well have to dig it again but it made us feel useful, and a bit better to think that we might not. We shared our thoughts on Fleet and the things he had told me, as well as what Regis had said. We couldn't let him die, even if we couldn't trust him afterwards. We all had something important to protect and so did he. We had no right to let him die like this.

We finished filling the grave around midnight and Fleet was finally stable, unconscious but alive. I decided to put in early for the night, no point in pushing myself when I was already exhausted. We wouldn't be able to move Fleet to the temple till daylight anyway. _I'll think about everything later, when I wake up…_

Darkness, or what used to be darkness. Now it was more like a perpetual twilight with streaks of darkness intertwined.

"You're back early." Did he live in this awful place or something?

"Yeah, guess I am, do you…." I cut myself off.

"Do I what?" he raised an eyebrow at me. Always with the eyebrow.

"Nothing, never mind." Stupid question, it was night time, most people slept at night, I just happened to sleep part of the day as well. "So…. We won."

"Why don't you sound like you won?" his concern was almost touching, but I knew the questions he was really asking.

I sighed and ran a hand through my quills before starting. "Good news or bad news?"

"Preferably both." Alright then.

"No one from the army was a general, we were surprised by one of the three in charge, but for the most part they were easy enough to handle. No drastic measures needed."

"And?"

I flinched at the way he said it. I set about explaining the whole thing from the beginning, everything. "…and now we're pretty much waiting for daylight to move Fleet to the temple."

I was met with silence, deafening silence. I don't know what Shadow had been expecting or how I had expected him to react but this wasn't it. It seemed that lately every time I expected something to happen it didn't and vice versa.

"I hope you don't plan on staying at the temple just because of this Fleet."

"I hadn't thought about that."

"I see… and what do you plan on doing if he turns on you again?"

"Leaving him at the temple because his injuries won't let him follow us. We will deal with him when we get back if worse comes to worst." Shadow gives me a slow nod. His lack of response was rubbing me the wrong way again. "Are you going to say something or are you going to just stand there staring at nothing the entire time I'm here?" The eyebrow again.

"What do you want me to say? That I'll hold your hand and sing songs to make you all feel better? Maybe you want me to tell you the secrets of the universe so that everything will fall into place and you will all live happily ever after?" I couldn't hide my embarrassment at his anger, I really didn't know what I expected. "I'm sorry but that's not how it works. I don't know the secrets of the universe and I certainly wouldn't be handing them out like candy if I did. I don't hold hands or sing songs, that's faker and his friends' thing so if that's what you're looking for you've got the wrong person. I don't do the helping people for no reason thing."

"Then why are you helping me?" I was certain my face had become as red as the glass shard in my armor and I knew I was on the verge of trying to leave this place even though I knew I couldn't.

"In case you hadn't noticed you have the last chaos emerald in your world, I can't exactly go and get it myself." So that was it, I hadn't thought of it that way before.

"If that's it then why don't you take it from me when I'm here?" I should not be giving him ideas, why had I said that?

"This world isn't real, it's just a shared nightmare. Even if I took it from you here it wouldn't change anything in the real world." Oh thank god. I thought he was going to think it was a good idea and take our only hope away.

… Silence again.

He sighs, "I don't have time for this kind of thing."

"Really? Because last I checked there wasn't much else to do here." _Hah, got him with that one._ More silence as he turns away from me shaking his head. Why was I acting like a kid? This wasn't an argument to be won, it was a problem that needed to be solved. "I'm sorry Shadow, I didn't mean to…"

"No, it's alright I get it." He ran his hand through his Quills with a loud huff. "I don't know why but you irritate me almost as much as faker does." **_I_**_ irritated **him**?_

"Hah! Seriously?" he turned back to me at the outburst. "That's why you've been so short with me? I thought you just hated everything, or people." His face reddened and he looked away from me. Wait was he embarrassed?

"So you don't have any new info on Salem's generals?" wow he changed subjects fast.

"No, just that we had trouble with their subordinates."

"And now you want to save one of them…"


	12. Ghosts Of The Past

**Hey! Sorry for the wait, had a bit of trouble working this one out but ch.12 is finally done! **

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch12. Ghosts Of The Past**

The conversation had gone downhill after that last question. I knew that we were trying to save one of our enemies and that the consequences could spell the end of our revolt before it truly began. Even so I couldn't let Fleet die, he had a family to protect and if we could make it look like he died with the others then his family might be safe as long as he stayed out of Salem's sight, or at least until we over throw the bastard.

"I hope you realize how high of a risk you're running." Shadow had crossed his arms again.

"Of course I know, I'm not stupid."

We sat there in awkward silence for a while longer before the world began to fade like always. I wanted to say something, anything, but everything I could think of just sounded wrong to me. I looked back to him one last time before he completely disappeared, he didn't look back, I didn't know what I had expected but my chest tightened as I too vanished from the nightmare.

When I woke I felt like the nightmare world had followed me into my waking hours. Even after sleeping I felt exhausted. _Get a grip whisper!_ I slapped my cheeks to get the blood flowing, I was not going to get depressed over this, and I was sure as hell not going to get depressed over a nightmare!

"Um… you Ok Whisper? Haven't seen you wake up so, _interestingly_ in ages." It was clear Talon hadn't slept at all, and he had seen my, interesting attempt to snap myself out of a funk. So I smiled.

"Yep. Perfectly fine, what would make you think otherwise?"

"Well…" _I have to cut him off before he actually starts asking questions…_

"We should get moving, the sun'll be up in an hour and we need to move fast if we want to get Fleet back before sundown." I made a show of getting my things in order and then went on over to find something to eat. Roasted veggies, and mystery meat… I hated cooked veggies… I sighed _mystery meat it is…_

Two hours, that's how long it took us to get everything together and cleaned up. You would have thought that considering we were packed light and experts at keeping things simple when it came to this kind of thing and you would be right, but only when we were pressed for time, and I mean really pressed for time like there is an army on your heels ready to slaughter you in your sleep pressed for time. But no, as far as everyone was concerned we had as much time as we needed now and since we had enough manpower to hold a camp and Fleet was stable everyone felt the need to take things easy. I tried many times to keep the urgency there but somehow it just wasn't working.

The first delay was when Fel _misplaced_ Talons sword, next Rune _forgot_ where she put her pack, then Maxis _remembered_ what he had forgotten to do last night before he dozed off on guard duty, finally Rune _panicked_ when a couple of low class monsters wandered into the clearing just before we got the last of the stuff packed and went nuts. We had to repack almost half of our gear. All in all not entirely unexpected.

Four monsters, three pranks, and way too many bad jokes to count, we were back and none too soon. The sun had begun to sink over the mountain peaks as we marched up the final steps. We were greeted by the none too enthusiastic surviving soldiers who, after some persuasion, and a short explanation were more than happy to comply with our demands.

"Is it really true? Are we free from than maniac?" of the remaining soldiers only a handful were actually loyal to Salem, the rest were in similar situations as Fleet, they either had family or friends back in the empire and the only way out was death. Until now.

"What about the people we left behind? What's going to happen to them?"

"The same that happens to everyone who loses someone in the war, as long as we don't go back or let anyone know that were alive they get left alone."

"Better than getting used as leverage to keep a war going," Fleet had hobbled his way out of his room with the help of one of his men.

"Captain!"

"You really are alive!"

"Thank heaven, we were all worried!"

I watched as Fleets men gathered around him an took turns telling him about all the things that he had missed while he was away, and how glad they were that not only were they free from Salem's grasp but that he was as well. It took me a minute to realize that these were Fleets men not Regis' men. He hadn't just been demoted and shuffled into another unit, Regis had been put in charge of Fleets unit as well as his own. I had to excuse myself to keep from breaking out into tears, how many of his men hadn't made it? How many good people like this had died just getting here? How many of them was I responsible for? There was no way I was going to sleep tonight. Not after knowing what the nightmare world would do after this. There was no way I could face them.

I wandered up to the lookout, and found Talon deep in thought. Looks like I wasn't the only one with something on my mind tonight. We could hear the beginnings of a party below as the soldiers celebrated their freedom. "Couldn't think down there either huh?"

He didn't take his eyes from the sky, "Nope, never could. I wonder what it's like, the other word I mean."

"Well its different I can tell you that much. Peaceful for starters, well mostly."

He gave me a look of surprise before the realization set in. "0h yeah, that's right, you got to see it, Mobius, didn't you."

"Only for a little bit. But yeah, it's beautiful and big too. It felt like I could run forever and never run out of places to see." Now he had me looking up at the stars too.

"Do you think we will ever get to go there for real?"

"Would I be trying this hard if I didn't?" I finally got a smile out of him.

""No, I guess you wouldn't."

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" he stopped and looked at me, blinking in surprise again before breaking out into another grin.

"That your lazy, and if it want important you'd find a way to make me or Fel do it for you." I took a swing at him but he was already moving. "Can't get me that easily!"

"It is _so_ on!"

We chased each other around like kids again for the first time in forever. The soldiers got a kick out of it and a few of them started their own mischief amongst themselves. For a while our worries were forgotten, and for a while we were happy again. We all knew it wouldn't last, but I guess that's what made it so important. That night there were no grudges, there was no hate, and we refused to be brought down by the last few days. We all got along that night, drinking and goofing off mostly. I learned how to play cards, and Talon learned how to lose at cards. Rune learned a couple of songs, who knew she would be so good at singing, and so bad at holding her liquor. Maxis drank Fleets best men under the table and didn't pass out until a few drinks later. Fel, well let's just say he has a few new apprentice pranksters, they thought that pranking him would be a hoot until they realized just how good he was at it. All in all I ended up not sleeping after all, and I didn't mind it one bit.

Morning came around, Maxis was still passed out along with most of the ex-soldiers, Rune had gone to bed hours ago and Talon and Fel were wandering around somewhere, probably causing trouble. I was on my way to the kitchen to start breakfast for a lot more people than usual when I felt a tug.

"Oh no, not again…" Another tug and a tired groan escaped me. "Why couldn't this happen when I've had some sleep?" The last tug pulled me to the blank world between worlds. I spotted three figures this time. Shadow, Knuckles, and another, orange echidna, which I didn't recognize. She was dressed in strange clothing, and as her eye met mine I realized something was off. I couldn't put my finger on it.

"You must be Whisper. Knuckles and Shadow have told me much about you and your world." The young girl smiled warmly at me, and I smiled awkwardly back.

"This is Tikal." Knuckles introduced her, and Shadow wouldn't look me in the eye.

"I serve the master emerald, muck like knuckles does. I was surprised to hear his plead for help." Knuckles blushed at the mention of him _pleading for her help_. "I have an idea that might get you to our world faster, however you may not be able to complete your mission before then if it works."

"The faster I get to your world, the faster I can get help for my world." She smiled and nodded happily, I don't know why something felt so off about this girl but it was going to irk me to no end until I figured out what it was.

"Great!" knuckles was thrilled at how easily this was going compared to the last time, so was I. Shadow was still avoiding my gaze however.

"So it's settled then, we need to start gathering the emeralds in earnest if we want to pull this off."

"Lighten up Shadow, we have four of them already and with an expert treasure hunter like me around we won't have any problems finding the rest!" shadow rolled his eyes at knuckles ignoring his gloating.

Tikal spoke up again, "we need the power of another emerald before we can bring you to our world without any problems, so we need you to be ready when they get ahold of another one. The master emerald can only do so much without the others."

"So when I get to your world there will only be one more emerald to find before we head back to my world and kick some tyrant but?"

"If everything goes according to plan, yes." This was the first time Shadow had spoken to me since I arrived here, and the edge in his voice told me how uncomfortable he was about it.

I didn't know how to thank them for what they were doing for me, for my world. The darkness had been overwhelming for so long I had almost forgotten what the light looked like, what unconditional kindness was like. Well, almost unconditional, still you would never find this many people willing to help someone they didn't know this much for so little. I was beginning to believe there was real hope after all.

"So how long do you think it will take to get ahold of one more emerald?"

"Honestly? Could be as soon as tomorrow, however it could also take as long as a couple weeks or even a month even with so many people searching for them." _A month!_ I mean I know finding something like that could take a while but the way he was putting it sounded like it would be easy. Not that I wasn't grateful or anything but they did say it would be a lot faster. Knuckles must have seen the look on my face when he said a month, "don't worry, two weeks is more likely, we have a good idea where we need to start looking for one of the two remaining emeralds." I tried to smile and nod enthusiastically, but I think knuckles is the only one who was encouraged by it based off of the sympathetic look I got from Tikal and the fact that I knew that Shadow was sharper than that.

"So it's decided then. You get me to your world, I bring my emerald and help you find the last emerald, then you all come to my world and help me save it from Salem before heading back to your own world."

"Sounds good to me!"

"Good luck Whisper!" I nearly had a heart attack when Tikal turned into a ball of pink light and disappeared with Shadow and Knuckles in a flash before I reappeared in my own world.

"What's the matter sis? You look like you've seen a ghost." I held my hand to my forehead and steadied myself against the wall, the smile on Talons face dropped to a frown.

"I think I might have." Shaking it off I decided sleep would be good for me after all. "Things just keep getting stranger and stranger." Talon said nothing as I made my way around the newest residents of the temple and up the stairs to my room. He knew I would explain it later, right now I needed to let everything sink in. I shut the door, flopped down onto the bed, and closed my eyes. No sooner had I closed my eyes then I was out like a light.

No nightmare world for me today, only dreamless exhausted sleep.

**Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the newest chapter, I hope to get the next chapters done in a more timely manner than this one.**


	13. The Things We Do

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch13. The Things We Do**

"Talon!"

Everyone had settled in nicely, well almost everyone, there were about a dozen loyal Salem supporters locked up in the basement level of the temple, we kept them fed and taken care of but they had no chance of escape, not with the remaining soldiers loyal to Fleet and round the clock guards. Not like they would make it through the forest on their own anyway but it was better to be safe than sorry at this point.

"Give it back or so help me god!"

Most of the men couldn't leave the temple even during the day but that was fine with them for now. It was a big enough place and it was safe from both Salem and the monsters that kept Salem out. All in all we now numbered almost two hundred strong, although most of the new members of the temple were recovering from injuries sustained while getting here, the ones who survived the first couple of nights were getting along fine. Even Fleet had gotten over the worst of his injuries, although he would always have a huge scar he seemed to like it, said it made him look tougher or something like that.

"I have no idea what you're talking about sister dearest!"

Maxis had decided that any men willing and able to, were welcome to learn how to fight well enough to go outside, it would take them awhile since most of them were in no condition to train but the ones who did had a promising future ahead of them. Fel had gotten the pranksters to stop following him wherever he went by pawning them off on maxis, he told them that if they couldn't pass Maxis' training then they would never be able to measure up to him. They were Maxis' first recruits.

"BS! You know exactly what I'm talking about and when I catch you, you are so going to get it!"

Meanwhile Fel did take on some students of his own, surprisingly enough he weeded out three promising cooks to help keep everyone fed and happy. Two more cooks joined him earlier this morning and so far things were looking up. I was happy that Fel was finally sharing his amazing cooking skills with more than just Rune.

"And what am I going to get exactly? Does it have anything to do with your notebook? Maybe I should ask this Shadow guy if he's seen it."

Rune was just as much at home ignoring the extra company as she had been before it exited and Talon? Well he was still his old self, only livelier. I don't know what it was about having more people around but he had more energy than ever, and he was causing more problems than normal even for him. Might have something to do with Fel not goofing off as much when he's busy teaching.

"Shadow has nothing to do with this! Now give me my idea book back before I throttle you with it!"

"Death by note book, not the most pleasant way to go."

"Oh hey Fleet. Good morning! Nice to see you doing better." I stopped long enough to wave and plot my next move as Talon zipped around.

He had gotten faster in the week after the big fight and it annoyed me that If he kept this up he might just catch up to me in speed. Between the chaos training, strategizing with Shadow, and trying to get everyone settled in and doing something useful I was hard pressed to find time to goof off like Talon. Not that he hadn't done his fair share of helping, no in fact he did most of the hunting and gathering, he just happened to have more free time than most of us.

"Good morning to you too. Let me guess, your brother took your notebook again?"

"How'd you guess?"

"Intuition." He chuckled and I smiled, it was good that things were looking up for him.

"Hey Fleet! Want to do some light reading?" Talon took the distraction as a chance to race past, unfortunately for him I was counting on it. I snatched my book on his way by and danced around to the other side of Fleet with a shit eating grin on my face, no way was I about to let my brother out do me when it came to speed and cunning. I waved to Fleet as I bolted back to my room and locked the door behind me before my brother could react. Leaning against the door I let out an exasperated sigh and slid down to the floor clutching the notebook. I had started keeping track of the dreams of the other worlds I had visited and kept a timeline of when and how things were progressing on both sides of the divide. So far I had only been to the nightmare world twice since and that was ok with me, I didn't really have anything to say to Shadow at the moment, and it wasn't like I and any news that he didn't already know right now. Other than that I knew they had a lead on the last emerald and were close to obtaining the one they needed. On the other hand we knew that we had to leave the temple for the resistance soon. Fleet and his men were capable of taking care of themselves at the moment and a few of the soldiers were almost good enough at fighting to go out with him during the day.

I made my way over to my desk and put the notebook away, I wished I could find a better place for it. I found myself looking at my armor that had been unceremoniously ditched next to my bed after we had gotten back that fateful night. The glass shards glittered in the afternoon sun streaming through the window, and the deep, swirled, purple surface beckoned to me. I sighed again and smiled. I was definitely proud of this one, I grabbed the armor and located my swords before quietly unlocking my door and peeking out to see if Talon was anywhere to be found.

Nothing

I grinned and snuck out and down the stairs, careful not to draw unwanted attention. When I finally made it to the gate without getting caught.

"Going somewhere this late in the evening?" I spun around to find Fleet looking out at the valley below. I let out the breath I hadn't known I was holding, "You guys really are amazing you know, you've been going out at night in this god forsaken place since you were kids and I can barely manage on my own."

I blushed at the compliment, I wasn't used to anyone saying things like that. "That's not entirely true, you managed to get two hundred others here with your own power."

"Yeah, I guess your right about that, but I had help. Honestly if it weren't for those two hundred others I don't think any of us would have made it."

"I'm sorry you lost so many men to this place…"

"Stop right there, this was our doing and our fault. We were here to kill or capture you and if you hadn't done what you did we would still be under Salem's control."

A few minutes of silence sat between us as we stared at the now setting sun. He kind of reminded me of my dad, well if my dad had been a kangaroo mercenary… I couldn't hold back the laughter, which elicited a more than slightly confused look form Fleet.

"That came out of nowhere."

"Sorry, it's just that you reminded me of... better days." I was still smiling as the sky lit up with crimson hues and painted the clouds purple. "Well I'm off pops."

"Pops?"

"Yep, take it or leave it, either way you're old enough to be my dad."

"Seriously?" I gave him one last grin before setting off for the forest. It had been a while since I did the rounds on my territory, and even longer since I had practiced with the emerald. I dropped down the cliff and with a boom headed over to the edges of the mountain forest.

Two days, that's how long I was gone. That's how long it took to get most of the stronger monsters a good ways away from the temple. That should help out a bit with the men who wanted to go out during the day. Maybe they would survive without us after all. I had gotten quite a bit of training in with the emerald and could now use it to teleport myself farther than before and more often, I had this nagging feeling that I still didn't stand a chance against Shadow though.

"So when were you planning on coming back? I mean not that we were worried or anything, but a little forewarning that you would be gone so long would have been nice since we are kind of on Salem's radar now." Talon really liked hiding in trees, I hadn't even noticed him among the greenery. His purple gaze met my green one, he looked more board than anything. No wonder he was out here looking for me, things were probably going smoothly now that we weren't the only ones capable of getting things done.

"Let me guess, Pops told you where I was?"

"Pops?" I jumped at Runes voice behind me, when had she gotten good at sneaking up on people?

"I think she means Fleet." What the heck! When did Fel… I was losing my touch.

"So when is Maxis going to pop out of nowhere?"

"Oh don't worry, he's still repacking his things. Said something about being able to leave some of it behind with the others this time." Rune and Fel laughed with Talon, so this is what it felt like to have a family again.

"Hey guys, want to see something really cool?" I pulled the yellow gem from my quills.

"Sure." Talon shrugged.

"Really? What?" Fels eyes lit up.

Rune just blinked at me. I grinned in return.

"Chaos Control!" In a flash of light we found ourselves on top of the farthest mountains from the temple, the ones we had intended to cross the night we met Fleet.

"Whoa! That's awesome! Do it again." Fel was having the time of his life, even if he did look a little tipsy from the travel.

"Whops. Careful Rune." I turn to find Talon catching Rune before she fell off of the edge of the mountain. Apparently she didn't do well with this kind of travel either, although Fel didn't seem to mind the dizziness and Talon seemed totally unaffected by it like I was. I did have to admit that it was a bit disorienting at first however.

"Anyone up for round two?" before Rune could protest I had the gem ready again. "Chaos Control!" this time the flash of light dropped us off at the top of the stairs of the temple right next to a couple of very confused soldiers. Between the happily tottering Fel, the overly concerned Talon, Rune who was now nearly the same color as my brother, and the slack jawed onlookers I was having the time of my life. Who knew messing around with important things could be so much fun? I held the yellow gem up again for effect, "Want to go again?"

"Yes!" Fel nearly toppling over.

"No!" The looks Talon and Rune gave Fel for his enthusiasm were priceless. Even though I had no intention of teleporting us again it was funny watching their reactions. I liked to think that the trouble I caused for my brother helped him get closer to Rune, and it gave me something to cheer myself up with after a long day.

"Suit yourselves, so did you still want me to give you guys a heads up the next time I disappeared for a while?"

"Yes. Why… what's up?" Talon, always the observant one.

"Remember how we planned to get the emeralds from Salem to get help from the other world?"

"Yeees…."

"Well, I may be able to skip straight to the getting help from the other world." I give it a moment to sink in before continuing. "And if it works then we won't have to risk our lives to get the emeralds so that we can ask for help to stop the tyrannical monster lording over us all…"

"And how long would you be gone for?" Talon crossed his arms and gave me a doubtful look.

"No idea, no more than a month or two at most I'm guessing." I shrug it off, I don't see why it would be such a big deal, not like if it were going to be a year or two, or something like that.

"Wait, you're guessing?"

"I think I am going to walk away from this conversation. Rune, you want to help with dinner tonight?" Fel was slowly and not so subtly backing away from the developing argument.

"Since when has that ever been a problem?" I was not going to let my brothers' paranoia get the better of me and our chance at freedom.

"I think I may just take you up on that offer." Rune quickly followed Fel's lead.

"Since my little sister decided to go off _on her own_ to a _foreign world_, for god knows _how_ long, to save us all form having a bit of trouble that we are _already_ training and preparing for. _That's_ when it became a problem."

"A bit? A bit. Really. How does risking our lives and the lives of everyone we currently care about and then some count as only a bit of trouble? And I am more than old enough and strong enough to take care of myself thank you very much." By this time I was shouting at him, he had managed to keep his cool and it was pissing me off even more. Why did everyone feel the need to question my decisions lately? Had I been botching things up left and right when I wasn't paying attention? No, no I was not, I had been helping out the best that I could given the circumstances. "I'm not the little girl who needed saving every time you turned around anymore. Besides, I will have the hero's from the other world to help me if I need saving while I'm there and I _will_ bring them back with me."

"Whisper, this isn't just some game."

"It never was." I pulled out the emerald and taking a step back from my brother with shock written on his face and tears in my eyes I shook my head. "Chaos control."

I found myself in the clearing where Booker and Regis were buried. Frustrated and angry I stood there for a while just looking at the unmarked graves. Taking my time to cool off I let my mind wander, it was surprising how the grass was already taking root around the edges of the week old graves. Walking back to the cave we had spent the night in I curled up in the farthest reaches of the darkness and began to sob. This had never been a game to me, as much fun and mischief as there was at the temple, defeating Salem had never been anything but a serious matter for me. He had taken my parents and nearly taken my brother from me as well, there was no way I was going to let that happen. I lifted my wrist up and gazed at the golden ring. I knew exactly how to save my brother and my new family.

I was exhausted, as I felt the darkness consuming me I hoped and prayed that the nightmare would come. And come it did.

Of course he was there, he was always there. We hadn't talked much other than to strategize since our, argument, but that was fine by me. As long as things got done at this point I didn't much care.

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing happened. How close are you guys to getting me to your world?" Shadow raised his eyebrow at me, perpetual scowl deepening as I blatantly lied to him.

"We finally found the emerald and we will be ready to bring you to our world as soon as we gather them together."

"Good. How soon can you do that?" I almost looked away when he knit his brows together and nearly dropped the scowl.

"Tomorrow morning at the soonest, are you sure you're ready?"

"Absolutely." I nodded.

"Fine, then expect to find yourself traveling to our world tomorrow morning then." I want sure if the sensation in the pit of my stomach was nerves or anticipation, either way I felt queasy. "Are you sure nothing happened?"

I hesitated.

He noticed.

"No, nothing happened." I lied again.

We sat there in silence the rest of the night surrounded by the darkening nightmare world.


	14. Warm Welcomes And Chili Dogs

**It's finally here, ch14!**

**Things Only Whispered In the Shadows**

**Ch14. Warm Welcomes And Chili dogs**

A light rain permeated the early morning, staining the sky grey over the already dark forest. I let the rain run down my face, as I stared at the clouds. Breathing in and out with the wind as it occasionally whipped around me and then through the trees and up the mountains. It was going to be a real storm soon, and I would miss it. Ever since I was little storms had fascinated me, the raw power and unpredictability they possessed enchanted and inspired me despite the danger. Even now I could hear the thunder rumbling gently in the distance.

I found myself clutching the emerald in one hand and my notebook in the other. I knew I wasn't ready, was there a good way to prepare to go to another world? Well there was no turning back now, it was too late to go back to the nightmare and tell Shadow to call it off. "What is _wrong_ with me?" I stashed my notebook in my bag and ran my hand through my quills. "What am I_ doing_? I shouldn't have fought with Talon like that, and I shouldn't have lied to Shadow, even if I knew he would give me grief about it."

I couldn't help myself, my nerves were getting to me.

"I should have said goodbye, not started an argument… he shouldn't have overreacted, but I shouldn't have disappeared like that."

Lightning danced across the clouds and thunder rippled through the air. Waiting was going to drive me mad if I kept second guessing my every decision, and getting worked up over every little thing.

The rain grew heavier and the thunder louder, the usually calming sounds of the impending storm were beginning to unnerve me. Then the wind picked up, nearly bowling me over and I knew it was going to be bad. They had better teleport me soon or I was going to either drown in this deluge or get crispy fried by the lightning. Another booming flash from the ever darkening sky sent shivers down my spine. Just then I felt something, like the world shifted somehow. Another, louder, boom made me jump as the flash of lightning nearly blinded me as it tore through the trees just across the clearing.

There is no way this was normal, not even for a thunderstorm, the lightning was red… another flash from the other end of the clearing lit the area in a sickly reddish hue.

Fire.

I covered my eyes as billowing smoke began to fill the forest and the clearing, another flash and more smoke billowed up from behind me. I turned to run between the flames and felt the familiar tug of the emerald in my hand. Another flash of red hurled me across the clearing and nearly into the sizzling, roaring inferno. The downpour was no match for the fire as it engulfed the nearby forest lighting the underside of the clouds the color of blood and the veins of red lightning were not helping any. Another tug and another bolt of red lightning just barely missing me. The world slowed down as the sky lit up with one final flash of crimson death as it crackled towards me, one final tug and everything disappeared.

Blinding white light surrounded me, engulfed me as I blinked away the tingling sensation running through my entire body. Every quill was standing on end from the electricity, and several parts of my fur were singed from the fire. I stood up after a few seconds of silence and gazed around, at nothing and no one.

Wasn't I supposed to be in the other world?

Then the tugging began again, only stronger and more persistently. Finally I left the empty space, only to find it replaced this time by a warm sunny morning on a familiar beach overlooked by a lighthouse on a hill.

My fears subsided, the tension left me and I gave a huge sigh. It was real, and I was certain I wasn't dead. The yellow emerald glowed in my hand, getting brighter as I stared at it. Looking around I couldn't figure out why it was doing that. There wasn't any tugging so it wasn't going to drop me somewhere else, so, what then?

Then I heard it, a continuous rumbling. It was quiet at first, then it grew louder and louder, I looked up to find the same flying machine as was in my dream circling above me. I shielded my eyes as it passed in front of the sun, yep it was definitely the same one. A minute later and it had landed nearby on the beach and a small, two tailed fox jumped out, waved, and began walking towards me. I half waved back with a dumbfounded look on my face. He was one of the heroes wasn't he? He was awfully young for a hero wasn't he?

"Hey! I found her guys, she's on the beach near the lighthouse." He seemed to be talking to others even though I couldn't see anyone else and he wasn't loud enough to be heard very far away. As he got closer I could hear other voices replying to him, where were they coming from? I wasn't sure if I was going crazy or if it was similar to the flying contraption he had arrived in. I had asked shadow about it one night and he had told me about how this world had a lot of tech like it all over the place and that it would take too long to explain it all to me, it would be better to see it for myself and learn as I went. Maybe this was one of those things?

"Um, hi I guess." Well this was an awkward way to start a conversation, me staring at some kid like he had a second head because he was talking to people who weren't here and they were actively talking back and I could hear them too.

"Hi, I'm Miles Prower, my friends call me Tails." Why did that name sound familiar? "Nice to finally meet you, knuckles and shadow told us you would be showing up somewhere today. I'm glad we found you so quickly, we wouldn't want you getting lost in an unfamiliar world." his smile was beyond genuine and he looked like finding me was the greatest thing in the world. I gave an awkward smile in reply and blushed.

"Oh, well I guess. I'm Whisper nice to meet you Tails. So um stupid question, what's with the voices?" he looked at me for a moment before it dawned on him.

"Voices? Oh you mean the communicator."

"Communicator?"

"It's a device that lets people talk to each other from a distance, as long as the other person has one too that is." Oh well that's helpful, and good to know I'm not going crazy, yet.

"Cool."

"Well I wouldn't really call it cool but I guess I never thought of not having it. Oh hey look its Sonic!" A blue blur zipped over a hill in the distance, and then another hill. And I thought I was fast. He zipped over the last hill and skidded to a stop in front of us. I was _so_ not going to get used to being slower than someone else.

"Hey Tails, so this is our new guest huh?"

"Yep, Whisper this is Sonic the hedgehog, Sonic this is Whisper."

"Nice to meet you. So worlds in danger huh?" I nodded. He was exactly the same as he had been when I saw him fighting the robots in the dream I had of this place. "Don't worry, we go you covered. We're kind of experts with the whole saving the world thing."

"Good to know…" I wasn't sure if he was just being confident or cocky at this point. "So where do we start?"

"By getting the last emerald from Eggman." Shadow had appeared behind us while we were talking. I had the strange urge to throw something at him. I resisted. He gave me a once over. "What happened to you?" I remembered my singed fur.

"Oh, that. Yeah. Freak thunderstorm started a fire right before I teleported."

"I hope no one got hurt." Tails concern was kind of cute.

"No, I was a good ways away from anything and with the way it was raining it should put it out before it spreads too far." He sighed in relief. The people here were surprisingly caring about things that most people wouldn't bat an eyelash at in my world.

"Hey guys! We finally caught up." Knuckles and the pink hedgehog ran over from down the beach panting.

"Hey whisper, good to see you made it." I nodded to them.

"So now that were all here…" was I imagining things or was Shadow more impatient than usual? "Let's get down to business."

"Don't be so uptight Shadow." Sonic smirked at him, _well that explains Shadows discomfort_. "Let's grab something to eat first, I could do with a couple of chilidogs right about now."

"What's a chili dog?" everyone turned to look at me with a mix of shock and disbelief, even the usually annoyed Shadow had a surprised look on his face.

"Wait, you mean to tell me you don't know what a chili dog is?" Sonic really seemed to like these chili dog things.

"Um… yes?"

"To the chili dog stand!"

Over the next hour I tried chili dogs for the first time, made a whole host of new allies, and potentially new friends, as well as getting a glimpse of what my world could be. A glimpse of the peace and prosperity that I had been missing most of my life. It was a shame I couldn't stay, not yet. And with that my adventure began in earnest.

What challenges would arise in a world so full of peace that could make heroes as strong as Shadow and Sonic?

What would happen to our two worlds if they were reunited I wondered?

After we got to know one another and after we had eaten our fill of chili dogs and other tasty things, although not as good as Fels cooking in my opinion, I began to explain what had happened to my world from the beginning. They all listened, with the occasional question about unfamiliar creatures and differences in our worlds, but otherwise left me to tell my tale. I left out most of mine and Shadows time in the nightmare world assuming he had told them what they needed to know beforehand and also left out the part about my argument with my brother before I left. At the end, most of them just sat there silently.

"This is going to be a bit harder than we thought. If this Salem can control the emeralds like you think he can then we need to take him down quickly. There is no telling what kind of damage he could do if he got ahold of all of them."

"There is one more thing I need to tell you about the fragment emeralds."

That definitely got their attention.

"If he gets ahold of all of the fragments and takes over the temple, then he will have the power to come to your world. The temple is the only place the fragments power is strong enough to do so and if he somehow manages to get both sets of emeralds then he can recombine the worlds, effectively taking them both over."

"That's not good."

"Knuckles, that's the understatement of the century." Tails had pulled out what he called a computer, he had tried to show me how to use it but most of it went way over my head, I assumed he had recorded everything in some way. Now he was just looking at the rest of us. "If he gets all of the emeralds then they would more than likely recombine as well, making them even more powerful. We wouldn't stand a chance against him."

"Then we don't give him the chance. We need to strike first, while he is unaware and we have the advantage."

"I agree with Shadow on this one, basically we need to get the emerald from Eggman before he gets the other fragments from your friends, no problem." Sonic stood up from the table, the others followed his lead. "Looks like we have a lot to do."

"You make it all sound so easy…" I stood up slowly, there was no way it was going to be so… simple… and yet.

"Alright! Let's do this." The others were getting psyched up about this, they were awfully optimistic about this fight. I couldn't help but trust them, even if there was still a bit of doubt lingering in the back of my mind.

"Er, um. One more thing before we get too carried away…."

"Yeah?"

"I assume that this is going to take more than one day to do so… where am I supposed to stay?"

**Hope you enjoyed ch14! Sorry this chapter is a little short but I wanted to have all of the next part in one piece rather than two. Hope you come back for more next chapter. Thanks.**


	15. Gone

**Sorry it took so long to update, writers block (getting sick didn't help any…) anyways, the show must go on, let's hear it for the next chapter!**

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch.15 Gone**

The temple was quiet, the somber mood made even more so by the unusual storm. A storm of this magnitude was almost unheard of this far into the mountains, and to make things worse whisper had disappeared after the argument the night before. A flash of red lightning lit up the distant clouds, sending a shiver down Talons spine. As if the storm itself wasn't unnatural enough.

More red lightning streaked across the distant clouded sky, moments later thunder boomed around the many peaks and then smoke began to rise from the forest. Talons eyes grew wide as the rising smoke blackened the already cloud darkened sky.

Another flash of red. "That's where we buried Regis and Booker." Another flash, "and that's the direction whisper ran off in last night." Talon vaulted down the wall, slick with rain, that he had been standing on moments before. Losing no time he picked up speed and dashed down the mountain toward the burning forest and ever closer to the unnatural storm and the even more unnatural red lightning. "I can't lose you to Whisper."

"Yo, Talon what's wrong?" Fel interrupted Talons concentration, matching his pace step for step with a concerned look on his face.

"When whisper ran off last night, that's where she ran off to." Talon pointed to the blackened sky overlooking the graves, Fel nodded his understanding and they both pushed forward toward the burning forest. Instead of slowing down when they hit the inferno they just plowed right through, dodging the occasional falling debris and around burning trees. The fire was spreading fast and the only sound that could be heard over the roaring of the flames was the intermittent booming of the thunder and lightning crashed in the clearing in front of them. Talon came out ahead and stopped dead in his tracks as a bolt of red lightning struck. The world slowed as Whisper disappeared just as red death struck the place she had been standing.

The thunder was deafening, the shockwave from the impact just enough to topple the burning tree behind Talon. He had enough time to look back as Fel dove out of the Blazing inferno just in time to tackle him. The two extracted themselves from the ground and backed away into the heart of the clearing to avoid the worst of it as the smoke built up around them.

"Some rescue attempt, she's not even here and now we're trapped. I don't know about you but I'm not fireproof."

"She was here, just before that last lightning strike, and sarcasm at a time like this seriously?" Talon covered his face, trying to filter out some of the choking black smoke.

"Heck yeah, would I be me without the sarcasm? And what do you mean she was just here? Where the heck could she have… oh, right… that…" Fel face palmed, and Talon started coughing. "Talon!"

"You are so lucky you don't have to breathe right now, then again if I pass out at least I won't burn."

"Talon, you have one dark sense of humor you know that? Hang on I'll get us out of here somehow…" another loud crash as the trees around them continued to burn, releasing even more toxic smoke into the clearing and lighting more of the grass around the clearing ablaze.

Through the reds, oranges, and yellows a figure erupted into the clearing, the edges of the figures entrance now a stark contrast to the fire as a frost slowly crept outward, fighting the flames for dominion aided by the rain. "Next time you two go off on an expedition into a raging inferno maybe you should wait for me, or at least think of how you're going to get out after you find your way in?" Rune raised her arms out to either side, her eyes flashing white as the frost claimed more of the clearing and quenching the flames on the edges of the forest as the inferno raged on behind the frosty barrier.

"Rune…" Talons eyes grew heavy as the smoke slowly cleared enough to make out the figure across the small field. A small quizzical smile lit his lips as he finally fell unconscious.

"Hey! Talon, don't pass out now buddy, we've got to get out of this hellhole now that we have a way out."

"Talon!" she made her way over to the pair, "What the heck made you two decide to run out into the middle of a storm, and into a raging forest fire, of all places?" Just as she said the last part one final bolt of red lightning struck, throwing the three into the frosty outskirts, dangerously close to the slowly dying fire.

"Is everyone alright?" Fel was the first one up. Rune heaved herself up as well and rushed over to Talon, resting her hand on his chest, letting out a sigh of relief as she made sure he was still breathing.

"Was that…"

"Red lightning. Yeah I thought I was seeing things at first too. It's real, and painful." he rubbed the side of his head and walked over to Talon. Fel crouched down and nodded to Rune that he would carry him. Gingerly she hoisted him up and onto Fels back. "Lead the way Ice queen."

Ignoring Fels sense of humor she nodded and slowly led the way through the dying flames of the forest as the frost overtook it.

Birdsong and light trickled into the room, the storm clouds dispersing outside. Searing pain rampaged through talons lungs as he took a deep breath causing him to let out a series of rasping coughs, making his companion stir in her sleep. Rune had pulled up a chair next to his bed and had fallen asleep half draped over the side of his bed.

The door creaked as Fel and Fleet peeked in to check on them. Fel quietly rushed over when he saw that Talon was awake, "dude, I thought you were a goner until we got you here."

"How long was I out…"

"Not long, only a few hours, sun won't set for another four hours or so." Fleet was leaning against the doorway a slight smile hiding behind a new bandana tied around his neck.

"Thanks guys, for well, everything." Talon leaned back in the bed again wincing as he sighed.

"Don't thank us, Rune is the one who never left your side." Gesturing to the sleeping hedgehog at Talons bedside. Talon blushed as a small smile touched his lips, only to be interrupted as Fleet finally spoke up.

"So Fel tells me that you were looking for Whisper when you got yourselves into this mess."

"Yeah. She disappeared when I got there, probably went to the other world." a drained look drifted into his features as he remembered the last words they had shared. Worry furrowing his brow, as he brought his hands up and dropped his head into them. "Why does everything have to be so complicated?"

"That's life mate, if it were easy it wouldn't be so precious." Fleet was still leaning against the doorway, "so what's all this about her going to the other world? I thought you needed all of the fragment emeralds to do that." Fel and Talon glanced at one another before looking back to Fleet.

"I knew we forgot to tell someone."

"I'll say, sorry Fleet." He nodded his understanding, gesturing for them to continue.

"Long story short my sister has one of the real emeralds, and she's been in contact with the original world that this one split off from. The heroes from the other world gathered enough of their emeralds to pull her into their world and now she's helping them get the last emerald there so she can come back with the heroes and help us defeat Salem and hopefully recombine all of the emeralds and the two worlds."

"And that freak storm just happened to show up just when she was leaving."

"I don't know about the storm but the red lighting was definitely beyond weird."

Fleet nearly leapt across the room, shock and fear evident on his face. "Did you say red lightning?"

"Yeah, it was weird, I've never seen anything like it before."

"I have…" Fleet took a step back and slumped down into the empty chair next to the wall defeat mixing with the fear.

Talons face paled and as usual Fel was the one to ask the stupid question. "Really where?"

"Salem." Everyone in the room looked to Rune, somewhere in the conversation she had woken up without anyone noticing and the look on her face was one of loathing as she said the name like it was made of poison.

**Again sorry for the wait on this one, had a hard time finding the right way to word this with the change in perspective. Anyways, happy holidays everyone hope you have a wonderful (and safe) time. **


	16. Black and Blue

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch16. Black and Blue**

Keeping up with this guy was like trying to keep up with a streak of blue lightning, he wasn't just fast he was way out of my league. I had thought I was fast when I finally managed a sonic boom, and when I began to go that fast on a regular basis I felt untouchable. This guy blew the very idea out of the water. To make things worse Shadow would occasionally show up to update us on the situation, and he was just as fast. How had I gotten the better of him at all at our first meeting?

"You doing alright back there?" I felt my face heat up at the normally harmless remark. For some reason I couldn't help but get riled up every time sonic opened his mouth to be helpful. "We can slow the pace if you need, or take a break."

It felt like he was accidentally mocking me, I had been the fastest person I had ever known besides shadow, whom I had never see go full speed, since training at the temple. Now I found out that I wasn't even second best. Both sonic and shadow could easily out pace me and even though I was faster than knuckles he hit a lot harder than I did.

"No, I can keep this pace up for a while longer, but a stop for food would be nice." My stomach protested when we didn't stop to eat the instant food was mentioned.

We had been running for almost five hours, scouring the area in pairs to find the base that this had supposedly built. According to the others it was something he always did, and if they were right he also had a plan to nab the emeralds we had on us as well.

Sonic laughed, "It's decided then." He put his hand up to his earpiece and told the others to meet up for lunch and soon we were all sitting in a field having a picnic. I couldn't help but think that this was all a bit too easy and that there was no way a villain was just going to let us be this carefree as we tried to take an unparalleled power source from him.

As we sat there eating I tried to join in on the conversation without getting to incredibly awkward. "So, uh how often do you do stuff like this? Eating a picnic while on a mission I mean."

"Whenever Amy feels like packing one before we leave."

… I didn't know how to respond to that.

"I don't see why we need to stop for a picnic, it's a waste of time if you ask me. We should be looking for Eggmans' lair, getting the last emerald is our priority right now."

"Lighten up Shadow, it isn't like he's going anywhere. After all we have the rest of the emeralds so sit down and eat something." Knuckles finished off yet another sandwich while sonic tossed back another chilidog. Shadows stomach gurgled and he grudgingly grabbed some food but refused to sit down.

Amy finished off her own sandwich and turned to Whisper. "So what's your world like? Aside from the needing to be saved part I mean." I got a couple of hopeful and interested looks from the others, excluding Shadow who had already been given a pretty good idea.

"Well, I'm not really sure about most of the world now. It's been a long time since I left the mountains around the temple. But what I remember before Salem started taking control of everything, it was beautiful. A lot like your world actually." I went on to tell them about the place I had lived with my parents and the different places I had seen with my brother while on the run, finally I told them about the temple and the forested mountains around it. "I don't know much about the desert yet seen as how I haven't been there before or the northern continent, so yeah that about sums it up."

Everyone had been hanging on my every word once I got going, even Shadow had taken an interest in my explanation. "Wow, It all sounds so amazing. I can't wait to see it for myself!" Amy looked as if she had just been told about a dream vacation even though she knew my world was currently under the rule of a tyrant who had very effectively destroyed most of the beauty she wanted to see.

"Well then we had better get moving so we can get the last emerald shouldn't we." Sonic was the first one up and ready to go, other than Shadow who was already standing, I had a feeling it was always like this.

"Finally." I gave shadow a doubtful look for his impatience, he wasn't so keen on leaving when I was talking about my world. He turned away and started off the instant we made eye contact.

"Alright, we should be getting close to finding it. There isn't much area to go over left." Tails had pulled out his computer again and was furiously typing away, probably doing something with the grid map he had shown us all earlier. "I think we should start working in teams of three now, just in case we get into trouble."

"Good idea tails, Eggman is fond of ambushes." To me it seemed like sonic was all for anything tails suggested. Not that I was complaining or anything, I just wasn't used to the strategist being so… young.

I stood up and brushed the grass off of my pants and pulled a twig out of my sword strap. "So who gets to play chaperone this time?" I had spent the night at Amy's and most of today trying to catch up with sonic.

I had finally caught up to shadow and after three hours of nonstop running at almost top speed, I was exhausted. I wasn't going to tell him that however. He had crouched next to a lonely looking tree atop a hill, overlooking what appeared to be a giant mechanical fortress. "That's it. that's where we'll find the last emerald."

"That's some heavy security." There were turrets and bots everywhere, it was definitely going to get interesting.

"Let's go."

"Shouldn't we tell the others?"

"Why? It isn't like his robots are all that impressive, and he'll be expecting sonic and them to show. We can get in and out faster without them and trigger less traps. Unless you think we need backup, feel free to do so." He gave me a superior look and stood up.

It made sense and I hated to turn down a challenge, especially from Shadow. "Alright, how do we get in?" his mouth twitched up in a small grin.

"First we have to get there without them spotting us," I nodded, "that's the easy part. After that we have to make our way through the building without raising the alarm and find the emerald. When we find it we wait for an opportunity to take it right out from under his nose, when we have it we will try to get out undetected but stealth will no longer be the priority. Getting out will be."

"Alright." I"lead the way." He paused a moment to let a look linger on me, I don't think he was used to stubborn people being so agreeable.

"Keep quiet and take out anything that could give you away. And try not to trigger any traps." I nodded again and we set out toward the compound.

We approached in a wide arc, only encountering a couple of bots on our way. Shadow took them out with minimal noise and I had to admit I was impressed. I mean it was hard to destroy something made of metal without making a ruckus.

When we finally made it to the building I pressed myself against the wall behind him. The light swept across the ground inches in front of us as I held my breath. When it passed us and nothing happened I let out a loud sigh, eliciting a sharp glare from Shadow. I had to hold back a chuckle, instead I opted for a soft hiss as I pulled Shadow back from the corner when a bot rolled past. He looked annoyed for all of a second as he realized why I had pulled him back, looking back to me for a moment before continuing a bit more carefully this time.

We got to the service door on the side without a problem and managed to avoid setting off any alarms as we entered. The long metal corridor led off in two directions, Shadow took the one to the left without hesitation and I followed. Either he knew his way around or he was just very confident in his skills when it came to breaking and entering.

Shadow stopped suddenly and I nearly fell over when I ran into him. I whispered, "What is it?" just loud enough to be heard. He put his finger to his lips and pointed around an open doorway.

There were rows and rows of bots armed to the teeth with guns, rockets, and various other weapons. I was certain I paled a bit at the sight. I had never fought so many bots before, not even with Talon and Fel. I decided then and there not to raise any alarms. I pulled away from the doorway and followed Shadow once again as he picked his way through the hallways. We made it to a flight of stairs with a door at the top and found ourselves outside again, we were on the roof of the first floor and had to make our way across a very well lit, very well guarded rooftop to make it to the tower that led to the rest of the fortress. _Great._

"Hold on." He grabbed me by the hand and, before I could say anything, teleported us across the roof to the other door. At this point I was used to teleporting, but that didn't take the surprise out of it. definitely a better way across than sneaking.

We hurried up the tower, and into the main hub of the fortress. The control deck as Shadow called it. after a bit more snooping around we found it. The gorgeous white gem shone with an inner light as we approached. I felt a hand on my shoulder as I went to take it from the pedestal. A quick glance over my shoulder reminded me as I saw the look on shadows face. "Right, traps." I stepped back and took a good look around. The room was immaculate, not a single thing out of place to give up its secrets. I kind of wished maxis or Fel were here to deal with all of this tech.

"I have an idea. Why don't we teleport the moment you grab the gem?"

"Brilliant idea, too bad I have this place teleport proofed!" And the big man himself decided to join the party! God his laughter was annoying.

"I think he's lying. If it were teleport proofed, then how did we teleport on the roof earlier?"

"Hohohohohohoh. That's because you weren't inside. Go ahead try it if you don't believe me." That blasted laugh again the fat man was getting on every nerve.

Shadow raised his eyebrow pulled out his red gem, the sight of which still gave me the shivers, and grabbed me by the shoulder. "Chaos control!"

… nothing happened, the gem didn't even glow. Shadow visibly paled, this was bad. I reached around my back for my own gem only to have my arm roughly grabbed by Shadow as he bolted for the door. More laughter as bots swarmed the doorway, shadow jumped and I followed hastily behind knocking bots out of the way as we went.

"GET THEM!"

In our haste we had gone a different path than the one we had taken to get here. instead of ending up outside again we found ourselves in a large domed room.

"The control center." Good start but now what?

"What about the white emerald?" Shadow stopped and gave me a half smile as he pulled two emeralds from his quills. One red as blood, the other pure as ice. I stood there in stunned silence until he tucked them both away and an army of bots came crashing through the doors. Que diabolical chuckle. "Have I mentioned how much I hate his laugh?"

"Who hasn't." Eggman turned beet red and started shouting orders to his army. The charged, we countered. Training kicked in and instinct took over. I didn't even have to think about how to fight this small time swarm. The bots in the other room had been more sinister than this lot and in a few short minutes we had them scrapped.

"That's it? That was your army?" then it hit me, just as they stepped through the ruined doorways. He still had the afore mentioned bots at his disposal.

"You just had to say it."

"Sorry." Well I felt like an idiot. I heard the missile before I saw it. "Down!" I yelled, tackling Shadow. We narrowly missed getting our heads blown off. The missile had made a direct hit on the window we had just been standing in front of, and there wasn't a scratch on it. well so much for getting out again. Looks like we were going to have to go through them to get out. We were back on our feet in a heartbeat, but something was off. Where were the rest of the bots? I could have sworn there were more than this in that room. Another missile derailed that train of thought as we dove to the sides and began round two. They were fast, well not at running just their attacks, add a solid defense and numbers to the mix and we were fighting for our lives.

I ducked a machine gun only to take a sword to the back and barely managed to jump another swing from behind. Shadow wasn't doing much better, something had given him a nasty gash above his eye and he was having trouble seeing through the blood. Another missile hurtled toward me, it was a good thing they made so much noise or I wouldn't have dodged it in time. The explosion took out four of the bots and sent me flying across the room into the window. I slid down the window, leaving a streak of blood behind then shakily getting to my feet again. "There has to be a better way out than fighting an army of these things…" a bigger explosion outside made everyone look up. The dust was gathered to thick to see but shadow was smirking again.

"Just in time." He pounded a couple more bots into the ground with renewed vigor. I stood there confused for a moment before a flash of blue slammed into the window cracking it. although small it offered an opportunity we couldn't pass up.

"NO! THEY MUSTN'T ESCAPE WITH THE EMERALD!" Eggman had found some sort of hover ship thing and was now standing up in it pointing and shouting at us.

Another explosion sent Shadow flying into me this time, sending spider cracks out from the already weakened glass. It was impossible for us to get a fast enough start in here to break through in one go and I had no idea how much longer we would last, or if going full speed was even fast enough to break the glass. not to mention we had no idea ow the fight outside was going, if only about half of the bots were in here then sonic and them were dealing with the rest outside if not more. Another loud bang from the other side and more cracking, but little progress was made. I helped Shadow up and we rushed forward again hoping to take out a couple more of the dwindling bots. There were six left and only one had rockets. Dodging gunfire we drew its attention, leading his aim to the window again. Between the injuries and Eggmans gloating I was getting really irritated.

That distraction cost me. I didn't dodge in time, I was hit almost head on with the blast, only spider webbing the glass before slumping to the ground. "Whisper!"

I was so glad I had decided to wear my armor, even though I had left my swords at Amy's. Bad idea in retrospect. everything hurt, my ears were ringing, my sight was blurry at best and going fast enough to break that glass was not an option…. Or was it?

"Get out of my way tin cans!" Shadow began smashing the remaining bots as they got in his way. "Whisper!"

I managed to lever myself up and get to my feet as the world swayed around me. there were still too many bots for him on his own and I was a one hit wonder at this point. I had to make it count. I smiled mischievously and wiped the blood from my eyes running toward the very cracked window. "Silver Sleeve!" with a resounding crash the window gave way, glass rained down on the dome shaped room. Eggman retreated as his bots tried to escape the rain of death, huge chunks of glass from the ceiling crushing them. Shadow managed to get out of the way of most of the glass and dove out the window and into the chaos below.

The world was numb, everything was slipping away again. I had to stop doing that, it couldn't be good for me. I could hear the muffled sounds of a retreating battle and concerned shouts. I felt someone kneel down beside me, I couldn't help but wonder. I could vaguely make out the dark form of a black hedgehog, Shadow… and then another Blue form followed, Sonic…

At first all I could hear was muted shouts before it all came rushing back in, all five senses at the same time. Next thing I knew everything hurt again and the ringing was back. "Hey! Whisper if you can hear us say something!" Sonic was shaking me by my relatively uninjured shoulder while Shadow simply looked on in stunned silence a dark look on his face. I groaned in pain as I realized I wouldn't pass out this time. I almost wished I had.

"I'm alive, I swear it… now please stop shaking me." I choked out. Gasping for air after a two story drop I rolled over onto my side to stop the pain in my back. Sonic and the others looked relieved and worried all at the same time. Shadow looked almost pained and that dark look he had on didn't go away, only lessened. Amy had to refrain from hugging me and Knuckles almost did, until Amy hit him with her hammer to remind him I was** very** injured. It was a relief to find that Shadow and I were the only two with any real injuries.

I managed to sit up while the others assessed the damage. Eggman had gotten away but that was fine. We had the final emerald. The bots had been properly disposed of and I was happy to have been a part of things even though it had nearly killed me. I glanced over to Shadow again to find he had distanced himself from everyone else. Sonic caught on. "Hey mister big shot hero! Why don't you look a bit more cheery? She'll be fine in a few days and you got the chaos emerald!"

"What makes you think I want to be cheery?"

"Don't be such a downer Shadow."

"Leave me alone faker. Call me when it's time to go." And with that he left. "Chaos control." I felt alone again, I was finally surrounded by friends and my life was no longer in any danger. In a few days I would be healthy again and my world would be on the path to freedom. So why did I feel so empty?


	17. Double Agent?

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch17. Double Agent?**

"So let me get this straight. Salem knows all about our plan to overthrow him." She nodded.

"And he didn't think much of it until he realized there was a possibility that we could get help from the original world. So he sent an army." Another nod. "And how do you factor into all of this?"

Rune blushed, the color vibrant against her pale complexion. "Well I was originally a spy for him and when Maxis saved me and I met all of you I decided to help you instead." Talon was trying hard to keep his cool and not get mad at Rune for not saying anything before. Rune was trying hard to not make eye contact.

"More like fell in love." Fel made kissy faces at Talon.

"Shut it Fel." The Green hedgehog was not in the mood for his friends' games. He turned back to Rune with a slight blush to his face now as well. "Maxis knew?"

Another nod, "before he brought me here. Yes." The White and blue hedgehog was getting nervous. She had known that it would come to this someday, just not under these circumstances. "We agreed that I should stay in contact, as long as I didn't leak anything important."

"Would our location be one of those not so important facts?" Fel had joined the interrogation if for no other reason than to be included in the goings on. Fleet was standing guard outside the door to make sure no one was going to eavesdrop on such a delicate conversation and Maxis was keeping everyone else occupied with cleaning the lower levels of the temple.

"He already knew. He didn't think you were a threat at first but when he found out Maxis had an emerald he began to worry."

"You told him about our emerald?!" Fel couldn't help the outburst. Talon couldn't help but feel annoyed by his orange robo-feline friend for jumping to conclusions.

"No." She looked up and gave Fel a hard look. "He already knew about that before I came along as well. He's had eyes on this place long before Talon and Whisper showed up. When he found out where I was he asked me to keep an eye on you, to report on any suspicious activity."

Talon clamped a hand over Fels' mouth to keep him from saying anything else stupid. "And?"

"And I made sure to keep him a few steps behind your current activities and never told him about the emeralds or your actual skills. Nor did I tell him about your plans and Fleets survival. It was all coordinated and planed by Maxis."

"If Salem was the one who sent you then why did he attack you on your way here?" Rune visibly flinched at that question, a very pained look on her face.

"His exact words before he sicked one of his generals on me were; I want to make it look as real as possible." Her already pale complexion went even whiter as her earlier embarrassment was replaced by an overwhelming fear. The same fear Fleet had shown previously whenever the topic of Salem was brought up. They hadn't failed to notice the same fear on the faces of many of the others as well at times.

The room was silent for a while, the tension almost palpable before anyone spoke again. "No harm no foul. Please don't keep secrets like this from us." Talon sighed. "You two are so much alike."

"Who and whom?"

"You and Whisper. You like to get things done on your own without telling anyone until absolutely necessary. And you often end up worse than if you had told someone in the first place. I have to admit the ice powers are kind of awesome."

Rune blushed again. "Thanks. I hope I didn't cause too much trouble."

"It's alright, at least Maxis knew." Fel got up and waved over his shoulder as he left to tell Fleet the news. At least things had turned out better than expected, now all they had to do was Grill the old fox on why _he_ hadn't said anything to them about it. He would have a bit more convincing to do than Rune.

Fleet ducked his head in for a moment to nod as he left with Fel off to do some more training with his troops.

"So what now?" Rune was looking at him expectantly again.

"We move on with the plan to go to the heart of the resistance." Talon was obviously feeling much better but was he really up for that kind of journey? "After I get out of this blasted bed that is."

"You should be fine by morning, as long as you don't plan on running around in any more forest fires without me."

"You don't have to worry about that, I'm about infernoed out at the moment. On the other hand, we should head out as soon as possible."

"And whisper?"

"She'll catch up," a wry smile lit his face. "She always does."

**Sorry this chapter was a bit short, I promise the next one will be at least normal length. Thanks for reading.**


	18. Pain

**Things Only Whispered In The Shadows**

**Ch.18 Pain**

I woke up for the second time that night in pain. The throbbing in my back refused to let me be and every time I got up to stretch everything else hurt.

Amy had insisted I go to the hospital, I insisted that I knew myself well enough to treat my own injuries and that it wasn't as bad as it seemed. At this point I wasn't sure if I was depressed or excited.

On the one hand I had been so out classed in the previous fight that I had been the only one in need of actual help. In fact, I felt like I had been nothing but a burden to Shadow during our quest to obtain the last emerald and even though we had gotten possession of it I felt partially responsible for his injuries and fully so for my own. If only I hadn't relaxed my training after I had claimed the mountains as my turf, then I wouldn't be so weak. If only I had called the others before heading into the fortress, then they wouldn't have had to come rescue us. If only I hadn't felt the need to show off in front of Shadow, then I would have been more focused and we might have gotten out instead of getting cornered like that. If only we had broken our cover when we had found that room full of bots and destroyed them while they were still inactive.

On the other it was obvious that the heroes of this world were definitely qualified for the job at hand. Shadow and Sonic alone showed me how much better they were at fighting than those of us from the fragment world. Together they seemed almost unstoppable and now that we had all of the chaos emeralds in our position we were ready to roll. Or at least I thought we were. Turns out we need to let them _harmonize_ or something like that. Tails was adamant that we couldn't do any interdimensional travel until then and even so I had to heal up first. He also said something about a ship but I wasn't paying much attention after that first bit.

Staying in this world for a few more days? Fine by me, as long as I got back to my world before everyone got the idea to leave without me.

My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a soft knock at the open doorway. "Hey."

"Oh, Amy I didn't see you there."

She smiled sweetly at me in the dark, a distant light in the hall making her just visible. "Couldn't sleep?"

I shook my head. "To much on my mind."

"Same. We have a big adventure ahead of us and I'm just so excited." I smiled back at her, she was right, there were still so many places I hadn't been in my own world and I couldn't wait to see them, even if the only reason I was getting to see them was because I was passing through on my way to overthrow an evil tyrant. That's another thing that got me, it seemed that no matter how badly things were going these people kept thinking about how good things were going to be. "Feel like a midnight snack? I have a tub of chocolate ice cream just waiting to be opened."

That's it, my day was made even before it began, "Do I ever."

Morning rolled around and even though I hadn't gotten to watch the sun rise it was already an amazing start to the day. Everything was still very sore but Amy had promised to take me out and show me the sights today and Tails had promised to show me his workshop after. Amy was thrilled about both ideas; I think she just wanted an excuse to go shopping and see Sonic, not that she needed a legitimate excuse to do so but hey, whatever worked.

"Come on, we don't want to miss breakfast at this wonderful little café I found. La louche café." Weird name but if she insisted who was I to turn down free food, especially if it was any good. We half ran all the way there, stopping only for traffic. By the time we arrived I was sore all over again but luckily we hadn't missed breakfast.

To sum up breakfast, delicious. It had been one savory sensation after another. Toast, strawberry pancakes, an omelet and two fruit parfaits because one just wasn't enough. I think I had just found my new favorite dessert.

Afterward we went on a shopping spree. I didn't see the point in owning a bunch of outfits like Amy, however I did see the wisdom in having something clean to change into. After the last mission we had gone on I had been forced to borrow one of Amy's. I ended up in a pink blazer and black slacks. No way was I wearing a skirt let alone a miniskirt which apparently was the only kind she owned. Everything else was either a dress or pajamas. So slacks it was.

Four hours later I had two new outfits and a cell phone, Amy had seven large bags of outfits and a new purse. I didn't know what to expect when we had left this morning but this certainly wasn't it. if I had to hazard a guess, I think the only reason we had stopped shopping when we did was because Amy refused to let me help carry her bags because I was still injured and she couldn't carry any more if she wanted to. Halfway back I suggested we stop somewhere to sit down, maybe find something to eat before going over to say hi to the guys. We ended up at the same café as before.

I didn't mind, the food was good and it was en route so it was convenient as well but something about it was bothering me. like that little voice in the back of your head that keeps telling you to do something but you don't know why until after you should have done it. Right now that voice was telling me we needed to leave asap.

We sat down at the same table as breakfast and Amy ordered for the two of us again. I didn't even get to take the first bite of my parfait before I stopped. This one smelled different from the first ones, like the yogurt had gone bad or something. no longer tempted by the tasty treat I looked around for a waiter and found several people had begun to look a little under the weather. Warning bells instantly went off in my head. not good.

I turned back to Amy to tell her not to eat or drink anything but she had already scarfed down half the food on her plate and emptied her glass of lemonade. I pulled the rest of the plate away from her in what I knew was a futile effort. "No! Amy don't eat anymore! Its drugged." Her eyes went wide as he looked around and noticed the other people nodding off. Some had even passed out by now. Amy started to sway violently as she stood up from the bistro chair almost knocking the shaded table over in the process. I clamored over her bags to catch her before she hit the ground and manage to keep her up but not without a painful reminder that I was in no condition to be playing catch.

"Amy, wake up. No no no no no no no… come on, don't…" there were only a couple of people who hadn't slumped over in their seats yet and of them most were well on their way. One unlucky person who hadn't eaten anything either nearly had a heart attack and passed out anyway and another simply screamed and collapsed next to her date, trying to shake him awake. I needed to get help, but I couldn't leave Amy here on her own, someone had laced the food and I wasn't going to let them get their hands on her. then I remembered, Amy had bought me a phone and programmed the others numbers in for me. I struggled to pull the device from my pocket and had an even harder time remembering how to use the infernal thing. I liked to think I was good with tech but this was well beyond me. when I finally got it to the contacts I punched the picture of sonic and it began to ring.

One ring

Then two

"Hello?" I was nearly sobbing when I heard the familiar voice of the blue hedgehog on the other end.

"Amy's been drugged! We're at the new café she likes café la louche or something like that. she ate the food and passed out like everyone else." I heard movement behind me and turning around I noticed that the couple of others who hadn't lost consciousness were now out on the ground like the others. my mind was racing at a million miles a minute and I was beginning to panic. Was I next?

"Calm down." Calm was the last thing I was at the moment, on the verge of tears and very much in pain I knew that I had to slow down. Taking a couple deep breaths, I could hear the voices in the background as Tails and Knuckles reacted to the news, and Sonic muttered under his breath "I should have paid more attention to where the place was." Of course he didn't know where the place was… nothing like the need to slap someone to get your mind back on track.

There was a muffled exchange before Tails voice came over the phone, "That's ok I know where it is, we may not get there as fast but we will get there as soon as we can. Try to keep things under control until we get there." I nodded before realizing that they couldn't see me.

"Alright, I will do what I can." Looking around some more I realized that the others had been knocked out by a group of men now working their way toward me. "Oh crap…."

"What is it? Whisper…" I backed away just in time to have the biggest of the four knock the phone out of my hand and crush it beneath his boot. So much for my new phone.

"Looks like we have our self a hero." The big guy taunted me as he reached for my wrist. I dodged around the table and gave him the darkest glare I could manage through the grimace on my face. "and a feisty one." I wanted to punch him just to shut him up at this point and I was about to when the skinny one stepped forward around the other side of the table to try and block my escape.

"Not too bad looking either." The scrawny wolf licked his lips and I changed my mind. I wanted to punch him first. The strangest thing about the four was that they were all well dressed and appeared unarmed. Obviously the big guy was responsible for rendering the remaining people unconscious but why were they wearing suits of all things?

"Relax, we don't want to hurt anyone. Were just here to do a little job and then be on our way. If you don't resist, I promise it won't be so bad." Right, like id trust a pack of wolves that just drugged an entire café full of people. I tensed up and feigned backing away further into the corner before I launched myself at the scrawny one knee first. His face made a satisfying crunch as I made contact and I flipped over him to land next to the dark one that had just spoken surprise now written all over his face. I smirked and twirled a kick his way only to find I lacked the strength to do the damage I had intended. I had to settle for pushing him back a few stumbling steps. "change of plans, if you don't want your friend here to get hurt," he let the sentence trail off as he reached over and pulled Amy off the ground where I had propped her up against the chair and held her in front of himself. The other two circled around threateningly and bared their teeth at me with low growls. "Boys, make it quick. I have a feeling whoever she was on the phone with is going to be a problem."

Oh they just had no idea wat kind of trouble they were in for, at this point all I had to do was stall for another minute maybe two and they were toast. "why are you doing this, what do you want?"

"Like we'd be dumb enough to tell you." The big one stalked towards me again and I backed away slowly, keeping just out of his range. Then I noticed it. we were the only ones left at the bistro. All of the other people had been moved while I was busy messing around with these four and now we were the last ones. They were kidnaping everyone there. Question was why. "Now be a good little hedgehog and stand still." The big guy lunged at me again and I dodged again only to get sidelined by the other last one. I let out a scream as my side gave me a warning. I was not making it out of this in good health.

"I swear I didn't hit her that hard."

"Looks like this one's no good then, get rid of her. We have no use for broken things." My heart dropped at that simple command. This scum treated people like things. Things to be used and thrown away. It was officially personal, there was no way I was letting them get away with this. Rage began to boil in back of my mind, pulling its heat from the rest of it as I switched to cold and calculating.

I stood back up clutching my side and, glaring daggers at them, sized them up again. Scrawny had gotten back up and looked to have lost his front teeth including one of his fangs and as satisfying as it was to watch him bleed he and the dark wolf started to leave with Amy. I tried to go around the other two but it was no use, If I wanted past them I would have to go through them. The smaller wolf would have been easy if it weren't for his larger counterpart. To top it all off my head was swimming from the pain and my stomach wanted to excommunicate my breakfast because of it. Still I was determined not to lose this one, no matter what.

If I couldn't beat them with my strength alone then I would need a weapon, since Tails had the emeralds I had to use something else, and that chair looked like the perfect improve weapon. Flipping it around I pointed the legs at the two only to get a snicker out of one and a grunt of disappointment from the other. The smaller one rushed in first and I turned him around and pushed him over easily with the chair and he tumbled into another. I knew I wouldn't have any such luck with the big guy but that was ok, I would figure something out once I took care of his buddy. The smaller guy was no longer laughing as he extracted himself from the other chair he had crashed into. "I don't have time for small fry like you, if you don't want to end up in worse shape than me then get lost." It was a threat I intended to keep. He rushed me again. I jammed a chair leg into his gut and twisted him around again but instead of letting him hit the ground I levered him up and spun him into the nearest table and proceeded to drive the chair into the back of his head, cutting his cry of pain short. One down.

I didn't bother to pick the chair back up, instead I walked over to a coat rack and emptied its contents onto the cobblestone floor below. We didn't take our eyes off of each other the entire time. Hefting the solid iron length was a chore with my injuries, one that I ignored. Not quite balanced but I needed the weight it provided to take this guy in my condition.

The sound of an engine in the distance told me I wouldn't have to wait long for back up, and the wolves didn't have that much of a lead yet. If I could get take this guy down before they got here we could catch them no problem. He was much more cautious than his smaller friend had been, either because he had seen how easily I had dealt with him or because he was smarter in the first place. Whatever the case he was in no hurry to finish this, I was however. I pushed for the offensive and swung wide and hard to catch him off guard. He blocked and I reversed the swing with the other end of the long iron rod. The curve hooks on the end of it caught him in the side and he swore as he took the full force of the second blow. He wasn't bleeding due to the hooks being blunt, it was a coat rack after all, but it he would definitely be feeling it tomorrow. He rolled backwards in an attempt to dodge the downward blows that I rained down on him as I drove him to the ground. Now I had him at my level, and I was going to take full advantage. "P-please, don't."

"You had your chance and you made your choice." I gave it a full swing aimed at his head, and missed as he ducked and tackled me. my makeshift weapon clanged loudly as it bounced away from me, and I was now pinned beneath a very large, very angry wolf. Wrapping his hands around my neck his claws dug in and he cut off my air. I struggled for a little before his grip loosened and he turned his attention to something else.

A flash of blue and the weight on my chest and neck lifted. Hands immediately began helping me up and supporting me as I regained my ability to breathe. Tails had a helmet on and knuckles was on a motorcycle unstrapping his own helmet. Sonic was currently trying to get answers out of the now barely conscious wolf that had been trying to kill me. it took me a moment to realize tails was asking me a question. "You alright?"

"Yeah, or at least I will be. They took Amy and the others, I delayed them for as long as I could. They couldn't have gotten far in two minutes."

Sonic let the guy drop to the ground, "Which way did they go?" I pointed in the direction they had made their escape, and no sooner had I done so than he disappeared in another blue blur.

"Knuckles, we need to follow him." Knuckles handed his helmet to me and nodded. Then he backed up and _dove_ into the ground. I stood there looking stupid for a couple seconds before shaking it off and putting the helmet on and adjusting it. "You sure you'll be fine?"

"Yep. As long as you don't expect me to drive that thing." Pointing to the motorcycle he and knuckles had rode in on. He smiled.

"Don't worry, you can ride in the side car." Now all I had to do was endure the painful ride there and help get Amy back. I looked sadly at our shopping bags and my smashed phone, some things were more important. I readjusted the helmet, climbed into the side car and settled in. This day was getting longer by the second and it wasn't even noon yet.


	19. not a chapter

All of my writing is currently on hiatus for a while due to the death of my mother, I do not know when I will be able to get back to it but I will eventually get back to it.


End file.
